Now Panditji began to worry day and night about the necklace. If he had washed his hands of the whole affair right at the beginning he would have had no worries. The neighbour would have been left with no option but to resign to her fate. Who would dare invite a Brahmin’s curse? But Panditji didn’t want to sell the honour of a Brahmin at such a low price. His mood and manner changed. And he became busy making money.
He renounced sleep for six months and did not know night from day. Earlier he used to rest after returning from school. A Brahmin has various ways of earning money. He’d never taken those paths. But now after returning from school he’d go to a particular place to recite the Bhagavad. After returning from there he’d cast horoscopes till eleven o’clock, and predict yearly gains, and so on. Early in the morning he went to the temple to recite slokas in praise of Durga. Seeing him like this, Maya wondered if she had taken the matter too far. If he fell ill it would be a big problem. Watching him lose weight she grew concerned for his health. Thus did five months pass.
One day, she was just about to light the lamp when Panditji arrived. He took out a small packet of paper from his pocket and placed it before her and said, ‘Here, I am now free of the debt you incurred.’
On opening the packet Maya found a gold necklace. Her heart thumped at the sight of its beauty and glitter. A glow of happiness lit her face. Looking at Panditji from the corner of her eye, she asked, ‘Does giving this to me make you happy or angry?’
‘How does it matter? The debt has to be repaid, happily or unhappily.’
‘This is no debt.’
‘Then what else! A repayment?’
‘Not even a repayment; it’s a token of your love.’
‘What? So will I have to make another necklace to repay the debt?’
‘No, ji! That necklace wasn’t stolen. That was a false alarm I created—a drama.’
‘Really!’
‘Yes, I’m speaking the truth.’
‘Swear on me.’
‘I touch your feet and take oath that it is.’
‘So you tricked me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never mind, your desire has been fulfilled. But, for God’s sake, do not play such a trick on me again.’
Translated from the Urdu by Shaheen Saba with Mini Krishnan
Satyagraha1
His Excellency the viceroy was coming to Benares. Government servants, from the lowest- to the highest-ranked, were busy preparing for his welcome. At the same time, the Congress had issued a notice for a general strike. This created a flutter among the government employees. On the one hand the streets were being cleaned, shamianas erected, flags put up, and on the other, sentries from the military and the police, armoured to their bayonets, were parading up and down the streets and the lanes. The government servants were desperate for the strike to not happen, but the Congressists were equally desperate for it. They proclaimed that if those in the government had muscle power, they had moral force; and so it would be put to the test this time as to who held the field.
The magistrate, seated on his horse, would be at the shopkeepers’ from morning to evening, swearing that he would send each and every one of them to the gaols, that he would plunder their bazaar, and so on and so forth. The shopkeepers would mutter meekly, ‘O huzoor, our lord and master, O divine legislator, do as your lordship pleases. But what shall we do? These Congresswalas will never let us live in peace. They will sit in dharna in front of our shops, grow odiously long beards1, jump into our wells, and go on a hunger strike. Who knows, if a couple of them take their own lives, then our names would be sullied forever. If you, huzoor, make these Congressists understand, you would bestow upon us your utmost munificence. Tell us, sire, what can we stand to gain by going on strike? Here we would have such big and important dignitaries coming, and, with our shops remaining open, we would be selling our wares at double the price, we would be making such profitable transactions . . . but what to do, against these rapscallions we are completely undone.’
Rai Sir Harnandan, Raja Lalchand and Khanbahadur2 Maulvi Mahmudali were all the more ill at ease. Along with the magistrate, and even on their own, they threw in all their efforts. They would invite shopkeepers to their houses and propitiate, appease, or glare angrily at them; give a dressing-down to the horse-carriage and buggy drivers; placate the labourers; but the iron-hold of a handful of Congressists was such that no one listened to them. Even the greengrocer lady in the neighbourhood spoke out with nary a sign of fear, ‘Huzoor, even if you kill me I won’t open the shop and allow my nose to be cut off.’ The biggest fear was what if the labourers, carpenters and blacksmiths employed to erect the pandals abandoned work, surely it would be a catastrophe then.
Rai Sahib said, ‘Huzoor, bring shopkeepers from another town and organize a separate bazaar.’ The khanbahadur opined, ‘There’s so little time that setting up a new bazaar will be impossible. Huzoor, have all the Congressists arrested, or their property sealed; then see how tamely they behave!’ The raja observed, ‘Lock-ups and arrests will only make them all the more belligerent. Rather, announce to the Congress, huzoor, that if you don’t go on a strike, all will be provided with a government service. Most of them are jobless; the lure of it would puff them up.’
But the magistrate found none of these proposals up to the mark. Now there were only three days to go for the viceroy’s visit.2
Then the raja hit upon a plan. Why don’t we play the morality card? After all, it is moral conduct and righteousness3 that
