The Complete Short Stories

just sit and watch them. When they ground bhang, I would sit and watch them. People would insist, ‘Come on, have a little,’ and I would politely refuse saying, ‘Forgive me, but this does not suit my system.’ Instead of invoking principles, now I was hiding under the pretext of physical incapacity. That mad rush of satyagraha, which had found its climax in smashing my father’s bottle had vanished completely. So much so that in the fourth year of college, when I heard the news of my son’s birth, I crossed all bounds of generosity. Forced by my friends’ pleas, I threw a feast for them and served them drinks with my own hands. That day I experienced great joy in being a cupbearer. In fact, generosity is just another name for falling short of one’s ideals or forgetting one’s principles. One is never short of finding the means to justify one’s conduct. The easiest thing on earth is to fool oneself —I haven’t had any drinks, I merely served, how would this harm me? At least I did not disappoint my friends. True fun lies in offering drink to others while one abstains from it.

In any case, I emerged unscathed from college. I started practising law in my town. From morning till midnight, I would be grinding it out. All those laidback days of college, the walks, wanderings and pleasures, everything had turned into a dream. My friends’ visits had also stopped. Even in the holidays, there was hardly time to breathe. I realized exactly what a life in battle could be. It is an error to even call it a battle. Where is the enthusiasm, the excitement, the courage and the applause of victory in all this? No, sir, this is no battle, it is just jostling and shuffling along. It is more like wanting to see the sideshows in a fair despite being pushed around from all sides. There is no tryst with the beloved here, just kissing the threshold of her house, suffering the foul-mouthed guard and returning home with a sorry face.

Sitting all through the day in the courts was getting monotonous. After returning home, I would barely eat two rotis and ask myself —is it for this that I work my brains and eyes off? Languish and waste yourself, and all for nothing! Along with this there was the desire to own a motorcar, a big bungalow, a little land and have substantial savings in the bank. But even if I were to get all this, what would I gain? My children might be the ones to gain and I would have died in vain. I would merely be like the snake who guarded the treasure, no . . . no, I couldn’t allow this. I will not sacrifice my life for others. I too will enjoy the fruits of my toil—what should I do? Shall I go sightseeing? But then my clients would get dispersed. In any case I was not such a famed lawyer that things wouldn’t work without me, and what’s more, unlike our great leaders of the Non-Cooperation Movement, I did not have the ability to pounce on a big prey when I saw one. Here one could only target tiny birds. Then should I go to the theatre every day? It’s quite useless. I would have to go to sleep at two every night, which would mean a premature death. After all, I have other colleagues. How were they always happy and relaxed? It seemed as if they had no worries. Self-serving is the essence of English education. The East dies for the sake of children, fame and religion, while the West cares only for itself. In the East, the master of the house is the servant of all, he works the hardest, eats only after feeding the rest, dresses after clothing them, but in the West, he considers it his right to eat and wear the best. Here the family is supreme, whereas there it is the individual. We are Eastern in our public selves and Western privately. All our true ideals are fast vanishing. I started wondering what I had gained from all the years of deprivation. I worked like an ass every day and slept with my head under the covers. Was this a life? No happiness, no entertainment; after slogging away at work the whole day, how could I be expected to play tennis? Even to get fresh air, one needed a good pair of shoes. There was only one way to make this kind of life pleasurable—sweet oblivion that would release me momentarily from the tensions of this world. I would forget my sorry plight, forget myself, laugh a little, break out in a guffaw, let my heart be filled with gladness. There was only one herb that had a cure for this and I knew it. Forget the pledge and the vows, those were things of one’s childhood. How was I to know that such a thing would come to pass? There was a lot of zest then, I had strong limbs and there had been no need to ride a horse! It was youthful passion that had spurred me on. Now it was no more!

This thought began to shake off all my accumulated resolves. Every day, it would emerge armed with new devices—why? Are you the cleverest? Everybody drinks. Look at the judges, they leave the courts and go drinking. In the olden days, it had been easy to stick by such vows when living had not been so difficult. Of course people would laugh, ‘O you who were such a steadfast one, now you too have succumbed!’ Let them laugh, I took my vows without giving them a thought. It is because of the vow that I have had to endure this ordeal for such a long time. I haven’t achieved any greatness or won any honours because I haven’t been drinking. Have I? Earlier, I would read in books, this