The Orchard

(A STORY)

We called him Atthan¹ though the precise degree of his kinship to us was really much more indeterminate. But we had no suspicion of it when he entered our lives soon after the premature death of our father. We were six of us, brothers and sisters, in various stages of an unhappy childhood or adolescence. In those days, our chief occupation was to add to the distractions of a helpless widow by a display of our innocent and chronic malignities. It was then that Atthan appeared on the scene like a heaven-sent guide, philosopher and friend.

His name was Murtyunjaya Sastri. He was of medium height and sturdy build. A prodigal use of vibhuti ²threw into strong relief the darkness of his complexion and the coarseness of his skin. He wore his panchakaccham ³a little more flowingly than the vaidiks (Levites) do, partly for swank and partly to hide a pair of bandy-legs. A single Rudraksham⁴,embellished with silver discs on the sides, depended from a piece of red silk-cord round his neck. The berry reposed directly under the adam’s apple, and moved with its movements whenever he spoke. He always sported two upper cloths, one shorter than the other; the former served as a handy substitute for a kerchief or duster or sun-shade according to exigencies.

His zest for ordering other people’s affairs was tremendous. In particular, he was amicus curiae to derelict widows, most of whom were childless. His house was full of them, and they were drawn from the remotest branches of his family-tree to the third generation. All that they needed was less than two meals a day, and somebody to look up to in the intervals between their appalam-making and temple-going. As they usually brought some little property to look after, or small annuities to collect from factious relations, the arrangement was to the advantage of both sides.

Atthan had been trained for the purohit’s profession, but deserted it for higher game since he was of an adventurous turn of mind. He was an indispensable figure in all that concerned the activities of a score or so of Brahmin families in the little town of Venkolam. He could help you perform a tharpana or shraddha with the right sacerdotal unction, or draft a sale-deed, or negotiate a loan on the security of land or jewels. But his forte was filing suits in the courts, and tracing their progress through interminable hearings and appeals. He often carried about under his arm a bundle of mysterious papers, swathed in a piece of silk-cloth, which he referred to as ‘dustawage.’

His talk was mostly about money with which he seemed always to be well supplied. It was only much later that I understood it was no more his than the money in the bank the manager’s! He was really a sort of animated joint stock company, with this difference, that he made both creditors and debtors pay him for his services in their behalf. If at any time he felt that he had exacted more than a legitimate percentage from his ‘clients,’ he would invariably celebrate it by performing the next feast or festival with a decorous ostentation which delighted everybody, and in which he usually gave the place of honour to his unconscious victim. Such was the man as I came to piece him out, bit by bit, over a number of years.

II

As the eldest son of the family, I naturally came into intimate contact with him. In truth, I did not like him at all; the aversion was instinctive and spontaneous. But under the influence of my mother, I had to show him a deference which I thought he did not deserve. Gradually, however, I passed on to him the management of the troubles of the family. Indeed, I was glad to be rid of the bother of answering creditors, discharging old debts with new, or periodically selling off odd nick-nacks to keep the pot boiling. But on the strength of these services, he usurped the right to exercise a very thorough censorship over my youthful activities. Though I resented it strongly, I had not the courage to throw off the yoke which oppressed me.

When I came to the high school classes, I got into a set considered fast, because the members of it dared to experience the fearful joys of doing forbidden things. Playing truant, exploring temple-towers or tank-depths, consorting with bhajana-parties, or frequenting concert-halls were some of the lines we specialised in. But the worst of our enormities was to enjoy the ecstasies of surreptitious snuffing. To graduate in it with honours, it was necessary that the snuff-box should be passed round among the elect during class-hours, and the titillating drug abstracted and inhaled, without incident, under the very noses, as it were, of the teacher’ in charge! I had arrived at the stage where the craving for it had become imperious without however my developing a corresponding courage to keep my own stock. I had therefore to create apocryphal engagements with classmates in order to escape from home on holidays to enjoy the forbidden pinch.

Once I was assisting, along with my friends, in a street-procession of a temple-god in the neighbouring town on the night of Chaitra-Paurnami. The moonlight was of such intense loveliness as to cast over the familiar, arid landscape a luminous haze that softened its ugly contours almost out of recognition. Some of us had gathered round the piper as he plunged into one of his impromptu involutions of Swaras, while the drummer strove to keep abreast of him with an answering cataract of plangent rhythm. We nodded our heads and kept time with our fingers in the most approved style of seasoned aesthetes. In the pause that ensued, our leader took a pinch of snuff, and then passed round the box to the rest of us. I took my share and inhaled it with what I hoped was an unabashed, anticipatory gusto. No sooner had I finished and given my fingers the lordly snap that is de rigueur, than I became painfully conscious of a resounding rap of clenched knuckles on my unoffending head. What with the snuff and the shock, I felt as if everything was going round and round me faster than I could hope to keep pace with. But the pain was as nothing to the humiliation as I recognised the hateful form of Atthan grinning over me like one of the denizens of Ravana’s Lanka, and bawling me off from the crowd with the emphatic declaration that I was hastening to my perdition by the shortest route, and. promising to deal with me more fully ‘at home.’ I slunk away in impotent rage, vowing eternal vengeance against him for inflicting a moral wound on my young manhood.

From that day, I decided to oppose him by every means in my power. My plan was simple; it was to contradict him at every turn, and meet his suggestions with counter-suggestions. But the odds were heavily against me. The more I hated him, the more was he indispensable to the family. His word was law with my mother. So he serenely went on, hectoring and bullying us. But I don’t mind admitting now that he also kept us going by manipulations of our little property which, though it steadily dwindled, never wholly disappeared. . . .

III

In due course, the time came for raising more money as, in addition to the family needs, it was decided that I should go to college. Excluding the small house we lived in, only one piece of land remained ours. It was a plot of ten acres in an adjoining village, half of which had been converted into an orchard by my father, because it was high ground. He thus gave proof of his originality in trying to rear a fruit-garden on incorrigibly bad soil in the perennially dry district of Chingleput! Cashew, cocoanut, guava, lime and mango had been planted with a sublime disregard for irrigational facilities. He sank a huge well, but did not live to finish it. We prided ourselves on the orchard, and would, in our idle moments, discuss its maximum yield at some unspecified, future date. Meanwhile it cost us no end of trouble and expense. Many of the trees had withered, while others were struggling on, even as we did–anyhow!

My mother was as keen on my going to college as I was. She naturally sent for Atthan and sought his advice.

He came and squatted comfortably in the centre of the kudam⁵ after neatly spreading the smaller of his two upper cloths for a seat. My mother sat behind a pillar at a distance.

‘What do you say, Atthan, to Chandru going to college? He says he would require bags and bags of money–as if it grows in the fields! I don’t know, but it is you must make a man of him still.’

‘Oh, that we shall, –if he will let us. How much do you want?’

‘As if there’s any limit to that!’ I thought it was smart.

‘Naturally–I forgot your admirable habits. Perhaps you have progressed from snuffing to smoking, drinking, and, God alone knows, what else!’

I cursed myself for a blithering idiot to have given him such an easy opening. Luckily my mother interposed with assumed warmth.

‘You wicked boy, I thought you had given it up. . . .’

‘Of course I have, mother,’ I answered coolly, ‘Only Atthan would never forget that time. . . .’

‘As if I have nothing else to attend to! Come, give us some idea of your requirements.’

‘About Rs, 200 for ten months. . . .’

‘Good heavens! A whole family could live comfortably on it for a year and more.’

‘–excluding college fees which, luckily for me, will come from the scholarship.’

‘That’s something,’ he admitted grudgingly. It was apparently difficult for him to reconcile a corrupt young fellow given to snuffing with a scholarship, He continued: ‘There’s nothing else but the orchard which can be mortgaged or sold. You can’t do anything with the house as you have got to live somewhere.’

‘Sell the orchard!’ I cried in dismay, for it made the pleasure of opposing him a duty! ‘No, no; it’s such a splendid property. I’m sure it will yield us.…’

‘How much?–when?–and after spending how much more on it?’ he spaced out his retort for more effect.

‘Why not mortgage it?’ asked my mother timidly, not wishing to appear on my side.

‘Why not indeed! But the question is: Who will take it in its present state for any decent sum? As it is, it is absolutely valueless. I tell you what, my dear Meena, these young hopefuls will not settle down here, after their education. Better sell it while there are a few trees left. That is, if you care for my opinion.’

‘In that case, I don’t want to go to college at all.’ I spoke more to assert myself against Atthan than out of any heroic spirit of self-abnegation.

‘Please yourself, young man; loaf about here, learn a few more fashionable habits like snuffing, and I assure you I shall have the melancholy satisfaction of seeing you one of these days between two policemen. If you are determined to disgrace your father’s name, I can’t help it. Only he deserved better. Well, Meena, I shall be going, I think….’

He pretended to rise, but not too hurriedly.

‘But Atthan, why do you mind the foolish boy’s words? What does he know of my troubles in looking after them all?’ This was at once to mollify him and to appeal to me to behave. ‘I shall not know where to turn for help if you give us up,’ she concluded.

‘Can’t we raise 200 on it, if necessary with possession?’ That would show him, I thought, that I too had ideas about such things.

‘That is not a concession, but a penalty; for the mortgage would have to go without interest, and in order to safeguard his capital would have to water the plants at his own expense! It is doubtful if we can sell it for five hundred.’

This enraged me. ‘What only Rs. 100 for an acre?’

‘I see you have learnt your arithmetic all right? Yes, about that, more or less.’

‘It does not take us very far,’ put in my mother diffidently.

‘But the money will take him half-way; and then we will see.’

‘However, I’m opposed to the sale of the orchard, please note.’

‘Now then,’ cried my mother sharply, ‘will you leave us alone? Doubtless your friends are waiting for you at the street-corner.’

‘I sympathise with you, my dear Meena; here you are, wearing yourself out for the sake of these unruly boys. And what is to be your reward? Some little minx will come from somewhere and queen it over him when he becomes a big man; and what is worse, fifteen to one, he will take her part against you.’

‘That’s the way of the world,’ answered my mother with a sigh, as I unwillingly left them to their tete-a-tete. . . . .

IV

I doubt if I mourned the loss of the orchard for more than twenty-four hours. It was soon forgotten in the excitements of my collegiate life in Madras. My progress there was smooth and uneventful. I did not achieve any great triumphs, nor did I make a single halt on the road to the degree.

In my eighteenth year, it came to the turn of my younger brother either to go to college, or to do something else. I had still a year to go, and Ramu was naturally eager to join me. In the summer vacation, we explored the possibilities of providing for two of us at Madras. It was clearly beyond our resources. Atthan was still the family friend and adviser, although my antipathy to him was as lively as ever. I had come to appraise the range of his activities with a more experienced eye; but I could not find anything shady in his transactions. The thought, it will be seen, was very much the child of the wish. My mother depended upon him as much as ever; so another council of war was held.

Atthan was, as usual, categorical. ‘There are three courses open to us,’ he began.

My mother, who had not sensed even the ghost of one, was rapturous in her gratitude to him.

‘I was sure of it, Atthan; I don’t know where we would have been but for you.’

He waved his hand deprecatingly, but inhaled the incense.

‘The first is for Chandru to make a good alliance. One thousand rupees down, and all marriage expenses not to be borne by us!’

My mother’s ideas on dowries were mixed. She deprecated them in theory, perhaps secretly moved by the fact of three young daughters still to be disposed of! If she demanded money for her sons, she knew she would have to pay double for her daughters, But in her present straits, she felt that a compromise was indicated.

‘I don’t care for dowries; but I suppose it will not be improper to accept whatever is voluntarily offered.’

Her ingenuousness was appalling! But I felt that I should not allow my case to go by default. So I announced with dignity:

‘I’m not for sale.’

‘Noble sentiment, I’m sure,’ sneered Atthan; ‘I hope you’ll not only act on it in your own case, but also persuade three other fellows to do likewise. And find out the first one as soon as possible. How old is Sarasu, Meena? Eleven isn’t she? Unless,’ he added as an after-thought, ‘like other modern young men, you turn your on your family the moment you get a job.’

I was always helpless, against his shock-tactics. How to make him look small by asserting that I intended to be a model son and brother, without being guilty of ranting? So I weakly said: ‘I am what I am, and shall be what I shall be,–for better or worse.’

‘Exactly my fear, young man,’ he answered dryly.

‘Suppose it is not possible for some reason or other, what then?’ interposed my mother.

‘The second course is to defer Ramu’s going to college for a year. Let Chandru pass, get a job and then pay bock his debt to you by helping his brothers.’

Ramu drew a long face, and my mother a longer one. I had either to take their side or incur their life-long odium. It was a case in which neutrality would have been worse than treachery. So I hastened:

‘That’s unfair. I tell you what, Atthan, please raise a little more money somehow. We’ll live together as economically as possible. I shall try to get a tuition or two. . . .

‘And fail in your B.A.! What would be the good of that? No, no; let Ramu wait for a year, he’s not yet fifteen. Or, as I said, you must agree to marry. Not that I have an offer in hand, but you leave that to me.’

‘There have been offers enough already, as you know Atthan. Only . . . .’

Her unspoken but more effective reason must have been, I guessed, the hope of a bigger dowry! So these two had been treating me as a pawn in their game!

‘No marriage for me, if you please.’ The remark was aimed at Atthan more than at my mother.

‘Going to be a sanyasi?’ It will be noticed that our antipathy was reciprocal.

‘You might leave me alone, I think. If Ramu likes, I’m willing to stop here to enable him to go to college....’

‘And come home at the end of the year, making two ne’er-do-wells where there is only one now! I wonder what your education is supposed to fit you for. Not for the use of your commonsense, so far as I can see.’

The brute! How I hated him for ticking me off every time

My mother was growing sceptical of his resourcefulness, and so she asked doubtfully: ‘What is the third suggestion, Atthan? Not that the others are bad. But let us have all the three before we decide which is the best.’

‘To hear you or your wiser son.’ he replied in an injured tone, ‘one would think that I am suggesting something nefarious.’

‘Forgive me, Atthan, I meant no offence.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder if the third course proves to be the worst.’ I said it mainly to neutralise my mother’s abject surrender to him.

‘Hear that, Meena! To be invited and insulted in your own house. I didn’t expect gratitude; but this is–too much!’

‘Wretched boy, where are your manners? Beg his pardon this minute, or I shall never see your face again.’

Perhaps I had gone too far; so I said sullenly: ‘Excuse me, Atthan–it slipped–I didn’t mean.–’

‘This is the last you’ll see of me, anyway. Well, well; if we wish to do good, we must naturally expect to be abused. That has been my experience.’

‘But, what is to be done, Atthan; do tell us about the other course.’

‘Oh, nothing much. But if this fellow liked, I thought I might see if we could not get some more money from the Gramani ⁶ who bought the orchard of you.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked my mother in great surprise in which I shared. The Gramani had taken such care of the orchard that it was expected to yield its first crop in the following year. I wondered if, out of an attack of conscience for having got it cheap, he was now prepared to pay something more, So I said:

‘I knew we were selling it for a song, However, he must be a decent man if he offers to pay more now.’

‘You’re talking like a fool–again! Whoever said that he was offering anything? Do you know he has spent twice the purchase value in improving it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean then,’ I replied, nettled and mystified, ‘but I have no objection to taking whatever he gives.’

‘Then send him a notice repudiating the sale of the orchard by your mother three years ago. The Gramani will send for me to square up the affair, and I shall get you a couple of hundreds,–perhaps. Understand?’

‘But I agreed to the sale, didn’t I?’

‘You’re not called upon to tell him so now.’

‘But really, didn’t you object to it,–at first?’ hastened my mother in what, I felt sure, was to be the beginning of a painful attempt at casuistry. Atthan went one better by saying: ‘And even if you had agreed, I may tell you a minor’s consent is not valid.’

‘But would it be right and proper?’

‘It’s perfectly legal anyway, you dunder-head,’ he returned, in a tone of anger at having to be on the defensive against me.

The opportunity was too good to be missed. So I shouted, exultantly.

‘But I call it blackmail, and I shall have nothing to do with such methods. I may be a fool, Atthan, but never a knave–either directly or by proxy!’

That moment, I was delivered from my uneasy thraldom to him.

As I indulge in my now frequent and unreproved pinches of snuff, I sometimes recall the memory of my Atthan with the kindly regret that is due to the dead. But even in the moment of my triumph over him, I was conscious of a feeling of regret that his third suggestion had not occurred to me independently!

1 Atthan=father’s sister’s son.

2 Holy ash.

3 Orthodox style of wearing the dhoti.

4 Rosary bead.

5 Kudam=interior hall or parlour.

6 Gramani–lessee of toddy-shops.