Chapter 2

Semri and Belari are both villages of the Avadh province. There is no need to name the district. Hori lives in Belari, the Rai Sahib, Amarpal Singh, in Semri. There is a gap of only five miles between the two villages. In the last satyagraha struggle the Rai Sahib had earned great fame. He had given up his seat on the Council and gone to jail. From that time the tenants of his estate had come to feel a great reverence for him. It was not that any special concession was shown to the tenants on his estate, or that the levies and forced labour were any less harshly exacted — but all that ill repute went onto the heads of the agents. No blemish could attach to the Rai Sahib's renown. The poor agents too were the slaves of that same system. The work of the regulations would simply proceed as it had always proceeded. The Rai Sahib's gentlemanliness could have no effect on it; and so, although there was not a barley-grain's reduction in income or in power, his renown had, as it were, grown. He could speak with the tenants and laugh. Was that itself no small thing? The lion's work is to hunt; if, instead of roaring and snarling, he could speak in a sweet voice, he would get his desired prey while sitting at home. He would not have to wander the jungle in search of game.

Though a nationalist, the Rai Sahib kept on good terms with the officials. The gifts and offerings he made, and the customary dues of the officers, went on just as before. He was a lover of literature and music, fond of drama, a good speaker, a good writer, a good marksman. It was ten years now since his wife had died; yet he had not married again. Laughing and talking, he kept beguiling his widower's life.

When Hori reached the gate, he saw that preparations for the bow-sacrifice play, to be held on the occasion of the Jeth Dussehra, were going on at full pitch! In one place a stage was being raised, in another a pavilion, in another a guest-house for visitors, in another the booths for shopkeepers. The sun had grown fierce, but the Rai Sahib was himself at work. Along with the estate, he had inherited from his father a devotion to Ram, and by giving the bow-sacrifice the form of a play he had made of it a means of refined entertainment. On this occasion his friends and companions, the officers and officials, were all invited, and for two or three days the estate buzzed with bustle. The Rai Sahib's family was a vast one. Some hundred and fifty heads of households ate together. There were several uncles. Dozens of cousins, several full brothers, scores of brothers by other kinship. One uncle was a devoted worshipper of Radha and lived always in Vrindavan. He had composed any number of verses in the devotional mode and from time to time had them printed and presented to his friends. Another uncle was a supreme devotee of Ram and was translating the Ramayan into the Persian tongue. Stipends were fixed for each from the estate. None of them had any need to do any work.

Hori stood in the pavilion wondering how to send word of his arrival, when suddenly the Rai Sahib came out that way, and the moment he saw him said, "Ah! You've come, Hori — I was about to send for you. Look, this time you must play King Janak's gardener. You understand? When Janaki-ji goes into the temple to worship, just at that moment you must stand there holding a bouquet and present it to Janaki-ji — make no mistake. And see, charge the tenants, and tell them all to come and make their auspicious offerings. Come with me into the bungalow, I have some things to say to you."

He walked ahead toward the bungalow, Hori following behind. There, in the shade of a thick tree, he sat down on a chair and, motioning Hori to sit on the ground, said, "You understood what I said? Whatever the steward has to do, he will do; but a tenant listens to a tenant's words with more heart than to the steward's. In these very five or seven days I have to arrange twenty thousand. How it will be done, I cannot see. You must be thinking — why does the master sit and pour out his sorrows to a man worth two cowries like me? To whom shall I speak my heart? I don't know why, but I feel trust in you. This much I know — that in your heart you will not laugh at me. And even if you laugh, I can bear your laughter. What I cannot bear is the laughter of those who are my equals, for in their laughter there is envy, mockery and burning jealousy. And why should they not laugh? I too laugh at their ruin, their misfortune, their fall — laugh with an open heart, clapping my hands. Wealth and warmth of heart are at enmity. We too give alms, we do works of religion. But do you know why? Only to bring down those who are our equals. Our alms and our religion are bare arrogance, pure arrogance. Should a decree be passed against any one of us, should attachment come, should one be locked up over a charge of arrears of revenue, should one's grown son die, one's widowed daughter-in-law run off, one's house catch fire, should one be made a fool of at the hands of some courtesan, or get beaten at the hands of his own tenants — then all his other brothers will laugh at him, will slap their thighs, as though the riches of the whole world had been won; and when they meet him they will meet him with such love, as though ready to shed blood in place of their sweat. Why, and more — our cousins on the father's side, the aunt's side, the maternal uncle's side, the maternal aunt's side, who are living it up on the strength of this very estate, writing poetry, gambling, drinking liquor, leading lives of indulgence — they too burn with jealousy of me; were I to die today they would light lamps of clarified butter in joy. There is no one to count my sorrow a sorrow. In their eyes I have no right even to be unhappy. If I weep, I am mocking sorrow. If I fall ill, it is a pleasure to me. If I do not marry and so spare my house from added strife, that is my base selfishness; if I were to marry, that would be lust-blindness. If I do not drink liquor, it is my miserliness. Were I to take to drink, that would be the blood of the tenantry. If I do not lead a life of indulgence, I am without taste; were I to take to indulgence, then there is no need even to say it. These people have played not a few tricks to entangle me in pleasure and indulgence, and they go on playing them still. Their one desire is that I should go blind so that they may plunder me, and my dharma is to see everything and yet see nothing. To know everything and yet remain an ass."

To move the cart forward the Rai Sahib chewed two folds of betel and looked at Hori's face, as if he wished to read his feelings.

Gathering his courage, Hori said, "We used to think such things happened only among the likes of us — but it seems the great men have no shortage of them either."

His mouth full of betel, the Rai Sahib said, "You think me a great man? Our names are great, but our substance small. If among the poor there is envy or enmity, it is for self-interest, or for the belly. Such envy and enmity I count forgivable. If someone snatches the bread from our mouths, it becomes our dharma to thrust a finger down his throat and pull it out. If we let it go, we are gods. The envy and enmity of great men is only for amusement. We have become such great men that we find in baseness and crookedness a disinterested, supreme delight. We have reached that grade of godhood where the weeping of others makes us laugh. Do not think this a small discipline. When the family is so large, someone or other will always be ill. And the diseases of great men too are great. He is no great man at all who has some small ailment. Even an ordinary fever comes, and we are dosed with medicine for delirium; even an ordinary boil breaks out, and it turns to a poison-festering. Now junior surgeons and middling surgeons and great surgeons are being summoned by wire, a man is being sent to Delhi to fetch the Healer of the Realm, to Calcutta to fetch the Master Physician. Over there in the temple the Durga recitation is going on, and the master astrologer is studying the horoscope, and the masters of tantra are busy with their rites. There is a race afoot to pull the Raja Sahib out of the jaws of Yamraj. Vaidyas and doctors lie in wait for the day when our heads will ache and gold will rain in their houses. And this money is collected from you and your brothers, on the point of a spear. It only astonishes me that the forest-fire of your sighs does not reduce us to ash; but no, there is nothing to be astonished at. It does not take long to be burned to ash, and the pain too is brief. We are being burned barley-grain by barley-grain, inch by inch, knuckle by knuckle. To escape that wailing we take refuge with the police, with the officials, with the courts, with the lawyers, and like a beautiful woman become everyone's plaything. The world thinks we are very happy. Estates, palaces, conveyances, servants and attendants, loans, courtesans — what do we not have? But he in whose soul there is no strength, no self-respect, may be anything else, but he is not a man. He who cannot sleep at night for fear of his enemy, at whose sorrow all laugh and for whose weeping there is no one, whose forelock is pressed beneath the feet of others, who in the intoxication of pleasure and indulgence has utterly forgotten himself, who licks the soles of officials and sucks the blood of those beneath him — him I do not call happy. He is the most luckless creature in the world. Should the Sahib come to hunt or on tour, it is my duty to keep at the tail of his coat. A frown comes on his brow and our life-breath dries up. What do we not do to please him? But were I to begin telling that whole tangle, perhaps you would not believe it. Gifts and bribes — those, well, are bearable; we stand ready even to prostrate ourselves. Living off others' bread has made us crippled; we have not the least faith in our own manhood — only to keep wagging our tails before the officers and somehow remain in their favour, and with their help to spread terror over our tenantry, that is our whole endeavour. The flatteries of our hangers-on have made us so proud and so quick-tempered that decency, humility and service have vanished out of us. Sometimes I think — if the government were to seize our estates and teach us to labour for our living, it would do us a great kindness, and this much is certain, that the government too will not protect us much longer. No interest of theirs is served by us now. The signs say that very soon the existence of our class will be wiped out. I sit ready to welcome that day. God bring that day soon. It will be the day of our deliverance. We are the prey of circumstances. It is this very circumstance that is destroying us, and until this fetter of wealth is taken from our feet, until this curse stops hovering over our heads, we cannot attain that station of humanity which is the very final goal of life."

The Rai Sahib again drew out his betel-box and, taking several folds, filled his mouth. He was about to say something more when an orderly came up and said, "Master, the forced labourers have refused to work. They say, until we are given something to eat, we will not work. We threatened them, and they all left their work and stood apart."

A fold came onto the Rai Sahib's brow. His eyes flashing, he said, "Come, I'll set these scoundrels straight. When was food ever given them, that today this new thing should arise? They will get wages at one anna a day, as they always have; and on these wages they will work, whether they like it straight or crooked."

Then, looking at Hori, he said, "You may go now, Hori, get on with your preparations. Keep in mind what I have said. From your village I look for at least five hundred."

The Rai Sahib went off in a temper. Hori thought to himself — only just now he was talking such fine talk of policy and dharma, and all at once he turned so hot!

The sun had come overhead. Overcome by its blaze the tree had drawn in its spread. A grey dust hung over the sky and the earth before him seemed to quiver.

Hori took up his stick and set off home. Where the money for the auspicious offering would come from — this worry alone rode astride his head.