Waiting for the Mahatma by R. K. Narayan

Author:R. K. Narayan [Narayan, R.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-80385-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Days of listlessness and suspense followed. Sriram lost sight of her for a considerable period. He thought he had lost her for ever. It made him so paralysed that all day he did nothing but lounge in front of his cottage going over in mind again and again all that had happened that night. He had suspended his usual round of lecturing, agitation, and demonstrations; he didn’t seem to think he owed any duty to the country. He ate and stayed in his den all day, he had read the joke about a ‘He’ and a ‘She’ two hundred times already. He saw the train arrive and depart. He saw the postman stop on the boulder and go away to the estates. He lounged against the corner tablet and brooded endlessly.

After all, one day she turned up. She came at noon. It seemed significant that she should avoid the dusk. The moment he sighted her on the bend, he gave a shout of joy and wanted to ask, ‘Are you coming now, because it is a safe hour?’ But he checked himself. He ran to meet her at the usual bend of the road. He asked: ‘What news?’ She didn’t speak till they were back in their place. She sat down, leaned back on the tablet, took a letter out of her bag. Sriram snatched it hungrily and glanced through it:

‘Blessed one, not yet … I am going to ask all workers if they are underground to come out. I want you to give yourself up at the nearest police station. Take your disciple along too. God bless you both.’

Sriram felt stunned. He read the letter over and over, trying to make out its significance. He tried to interpret it. ‘ “Not yet,” he says. What does he mean?’

‘He just means that and nothing more,’ she replied. ‘It is never hard to understand what Bapuji says.’

Sriram felt amazed at the hardihood and calmness of the girl. She didn’t seem to possess any feeling. She spoke of it with such indifference. He was appalled at her calmness. She was probably feeling relieved that Bapuji had vetoed their plans. It suited her very well – Gorpad. And of course, in his sick imagination he felt that probably Mahatmaji was also in favour of Gorpad, he’d naturally prefer to marry her to a grim and dry-as-dust worker like Gorpad. But why couldn’t she be plain with him?

‘Why can’t you be plain?’ he asked her all of a sudden.

‘What do you mean?’

He felt tongue-tied, and asked: ‘Why should Bapu not want us to marry?’

‘He doesn’t say so.’

He sighed: ‘I thought he would send us his blessing, but he has only turned down our programme.’ In his disappointment, he felt sore with the whole world, not excluding Bapu. He suddenly asked her: ‘Don’t you feel disappointed that we are not married?’

‘I have other things to think of,’ she said.

‘Oh!’ Sriram said significantly. ‘What may they be?’

‘I am going to gaol …’

The full significance of the whole thing dawned upon him now.

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