When he returned home, his wife said, “Someone came by looking for you a short while after you went out for your walk...”
“What did he look like?”
“I didn’t manage to get a good look at him,” she replied. “Shall I get you a cup of tea?”
His wife seized the chance to get away, and he was overcome by the desire to close his eyes for a long time. His face, pinched by melancholy, took on a faraway look. The voice declaimed: Fools! Nincompoops! How on earth can a man attain victory if the wheels of his chariot sink into mud at the height of battle! There are strategies to chalk out, campaigns to command, countries to conquer, and when you’re set to do all that and more the very ground on which you stand starts to give way!
“Sir!”
He opened his eyes a crack and saw two young boys, thin and starry-eyed, entering the room. His reverie interrupted, he stared at them with evident displeasure.
“This is the second time since yesterday that we’ve come to see you, sir,” the boys said. “If you turn us down we’ll knock our heads against this wall.”
He remained silent.
“You must agree to take the role of the emperor in our play, Swargadwar. Nobody else can do justice to it. So what if you do look a little old and feeble? A touch of make-up and you’ll look better than a real emperor. You’ve always played the emperor and you will play him one more time.”
He remained silent.
“We simply refuse to take no for an answer. The handbills have already been distributed.”
Who are these fellows? he wondered, straightening himself with a sigh. His neck looked longer than before. The furrows on his broad forehead and chin gave his face the look of a squeezed inverted triangle. Everything had withered away: the imperious hauteur, the bushy eyebrows, the big brooding eyes, the Grecian nose, everything. The sweat on his unshaven face looked like the churned muddy waters of a ploughed paddy field, and his face was pockmarked with the footprints of nameless dark monsters. The gaping holes, the furrows, the stubble.
Where had the famous face gone?
He looked up.
“So it’s all arranged, sir!” the boys cried out together. “We’d better run along now.”
His eyes closed. Reflections rose on the life-size mirror of the auditorium: the haughty, swaggering Karna in his red robe, golden waistband and heavy crown, with gilded pendants hanging from his neck like rising suns; the strapping Kartyavirya guffawing uproariously; Prataparudra, Mukundadev, Kharavela in exquisite dresses, with glittering necklaces and armbands, flinging their glorious arms about; the puny, deferential make-up man tiptoeing in and out of the green room, touching up an eyebrow one minute, a sideburn the next...
The stage is flooded with light.
There the sun rises; there night sets in; there the lion growls, setting the papier mache mountains and the cardboard fortresses atremble. The tumultuous sea of the enthralled audience stretches from the mouth of the cave to the deep night sky—every spectator a pair of wide unblinking eyes, a pair of cocked ears. Oh, the festival of applause! The sea rolls with joy, the sky showers petals, and someone climbs onto the stage to pin a gold medal on the emperor’s vast chest. The emperor does not deign to bow his head in acknowledgement, his crown touching the sky...
“Here’s your tea.” His wife interrupted his daydream. “Who were those boys?”
“What-er-who?” he fumbled for words. “I don’t know.”
“What did they want?”
“Weren’t they telling me something—what was it?” He lifted the cup gracefully, as if picking up a bouquet. “Oh yes, they wanted me to play the role of the emperor in their play Swargadwar.”
Fine, you find me a crown and I’ll give you an emperor as good as they come. Age does not put an end to class. He took another sip. That’s how Mukundadev took his goblet of wine from the hands of a bewitching dancing girl. His mind wandered again: foggy dreams, thin as swirls of mist, filled the still, upturned eyes of a sleepy man.
From her experience of twenty-five years as his wife, she realised he had already drifted off to another world. She waited, drank her tea, looked out and waited. Hadn’t she waited like this, night after night? The nights were so still that if a straw fell it could be mistaken for a winnowing fan. A sudden gust of wind, and the front door would creak as ominously as her heart. Sometimes, on the thatched roof a cat would pounce on a mouse; a bloody battle would ensue. She would hear a squeaking lump of flesh being torn to shreds. She would flinch and cover herself with a blanket, her nerves in tatters: so this is what life is for a mouse! Strange fears and sadness would grip her. In the kitchen, the egg curry stayed on the stove and outside the dew fell in drops. In the deafening stillness of the night, she throbbed with anticipation. The darkness was alive with the smell of the new mosquito curtain. And then it was gone, as a strange perfume wafted in from god knows where. She felt somebody was stealthily walking around the bed, closing in on her. Goosebumps rose all over her body. The sounds of conversation came floating in from afar, the actors returning from the rehearsal.
The footsteps stopped near the front door. A thick, soft knock. No mischief of the breeze this time. She would hurry out of bed, light the lamp and open the door with a yawn, feigning she had just awakened from a long sleep. The emperor would stride in, declaiming his dialogues in his deep baritone, and sit down to a cold, dull dinner of rice and egg curry as though it were a wonderful banquet. Who knew how late it was.
She sighed, and the curtain fell. The glowing stage limped back to darkness, and the lonely old couple drank their tepid tea. She wanted to begin a conversation, anything to hold his attention, but didn’t know how. The minutes ticked away, and in the disquieting silence the curtain lifted once again. Hectic preparations were afoot in the green room.
How I’d love to straighten out some of these fellows, he thought. Why doesn’t someone show these Kalamandir fools the door? Who brought them here? Their props are filthy, the curtains tattered and discoloured, and they smell to the high heavens. These costumes have never been washed and reek of a thousand different odours; they’re crumpled and the brocade is coming off. How can anyone put on such clothes and keep his head? But of course the costume the other night was the worst—it was crawling with ants. Luckily, there was time to take it off and put on another. With all those ants biting me, what would have happened to me on stage?
His eyes flew open, dilating in anger.
His wife picked up the cups and walked off.
His eyes closed. Were the Royal Painters people any better? First-rate crooks! And that seedy dwarf of a manager—how he would giggle at every silly word of yours! Never was there a greater giggler. Nor anyone more glib. He could charm the birds off the trees. But to give the devil his due, he had the best costumes. His emperor costumes were magnificent, simply magnificent. But where did that son of a bitch of a manager get that foul-smelling glue to stick on the emperor’s moustache? It was a lovely prim moustache twirling divinely at the ends. But the stink was so awful that he had to hold his nose. Once a damn fine scene was nearly ruined because of it. Of course, the audience didn’t catch on; maybe they thought he had improvised this mannerism, this royal habit of stroking the moustache at every second word. Little did they know that the poor emperor was in a cold sweat. His voice sounded so hollow to his own ears that it hurt him. He couldn’t tell people about the glue, could he? He would have happily murdered the manager. He shook in anger and scowled as if he was going to send everyone to the gallows.
As his wife washed the cups in the kitchen sink, she fell to thinking. Nobody had ever understood the full extent of her husband’s histrionics. Nor would anyone ever. The time for that had passed. The time had passed for a great many things besides: a house of their own, good clothes, good food. The only silver lining was that their two children had turned out well, after all. Mamuni had married an army officer and now lived in Darjeeling; Babuni had got a good job and moved to Bombay. That’s what the world’s like—you can’t latch on to the children all the time. How nice it would be to go on a pilgrimage now, just the two of us, husband and wife! How her heart yearned to step outside the four walls of the house! But she knew that was just a pipe dream. Her husband was gravely ill and deteriorating day by day. His rock-like muscles had melted away and the big hulk of a man was already a bag of bones.
The emperor sat stock-still, lost in his dream. Craning his neck, he glowered angrily. Already on some invisible execution ground, rows of nondescript make-up men and managers were climbing the scaffold at his command. How he had wanted to buy his own costumes, swords, wigs and beads, which nobody else would use! He had made plans to get them from Calcutta, but Calcutta always remained a far-off place. He had plans to record his famous declamations for posterity. He had plans to go on air. Kartyavirya’s bellows would have rattled the ribs of the radio sets. From the burgeoning void of the lonely cave a stormy voice rang out: “Nothing achieved! Nothing at all!”
The emperor’s head drooped. His eyes watered. Hurriedly the old actor retreated to his drawing room, to the safety of its wicker chairs, old cotton cushions and the odour of familiarity.
The voice from the cave chased him.
He suddenly remembered Radharani, the actress who had played the roles of the queen in most of the productions. She was every inch a queen, a stunning beauty. And when she played Padmavati how provocatively her silk sari would rise up her slim legs. What a wonderful lilt she had to her voice and how sweetly she sang! He had wanted to learn to sing, but the guru he went to said it was too late in the day. He had tried hard but could not go beyond the seven notes. He had wanted to be a sculptor and chisel incredibly beautiful shapes and forms out of rock; he had wanted to be a painter and create vivid dreams in colour on canvases as large as the wall. The slabs of stone ended up as steps around the well; termites got at the unpainted canvases; the tubes of paint dried up and hardened to stone.
The voice from the cave rose to a shrill crescendo: “Nothing achieved! Nothing at all!”
The emperor sank into his chair—his neck, spine, ribs, hands, legs, all in a sad heap, like an old sack filled with the broken coloured glass of shattered dreams.
The front door creaked.
His wife hurried back into the drawing room. “It might be that man again,” she said.
“Which man?”
“The one who was looking for you.”
Would her husband, a full six feet and two inches, get to his feet to receive the visitor? she wondered. Would he use the occasion to stretch his limbs? But he continued to sit like a shrunken lump, even as Beni Madhav Samant, his friend, strode in. A forest contractor, Beni Madhav was a jovial, fun-loving man.
Beni Madhav’s sudden appearance triggered off an unpleasant reaction: Why, I never thought Beni could be so mean! Just because he’s lent me some two or three hundred rupees, here he comes barging in. Maybe the tight fist has come to remind me about it.
“Hey, old fellow,” Beni Madhav said. “I hope nothing’s the matter with you. God knows I’ve come running all the way. Didn’t even stop to have tea.” He turned to her. “Bhauja, do me a favour and make me a steaming hot cup. But first listen to what I have to say. You remember the patch of sal forest, don’t you—that dark, eerie place? Damn it, I’ve never been able to walk past it without trepidation. Ever since I was a child. This evening, you know what happened—I was returning from work...”
Bloody skit! He smiled. A load lifted off his chest. Beni isn’t here to ask for his money; he’s afraid of walking past a ragged cluster of trees. Calls it a forest. Hah!
“Give me your ears, Bhauja and brother, will you?” Beni Madhav raised his voice. “It was simply incredible. A fellow materialised from nowhere and stood in my path.”
“Who?”
“Someone who’s been looking for you.”
“A short, slovenly man?” she enquired.
“Why, yes! But how did you know?”
“He was here this afternoon and said he’d come back.”
A brief silence, heavy as a fog, hung over the room.
“Oh forget it, Beni,” said the old actor. “If he’s looking for me, he knows where to find me. Don’t you feel there’s a chill in the air?”
“A chill in the air?” Beni Madhav was surprised. “It’s so hot and sultry. You’re feeling cold, huh?” He turned to his friend’s wife. “Bhauja, get the old fellow a sheet. Let him wrap himself up in it.”
The front door opened again with a creak. Beni Madhav started and stole a glance at his friend’s wife. “Perhaps it’s that man.”
Old doctor Dhanurdhar swept into the room and flopped down onto a chair. The chair groaned.
“What’s the matter with you?” the doctor enquired, looking at the actor. “Are you ill?”
The old actor eyed Dhanurdhar without a word. So you’ve come to collect your fees, huh? How I know you! Come out with it and end the suspense.
“Why have you wrapped yourself in a sheet? It’s so hot. Come, give me your hand. Let me feel your pulse. Never mind, that can wait. First let me tell you about the funny fellow I met on my way here. He scared the life out of me. Why was he lurking about under a tree like a ghost? He suddenly rushed out and planted himself in front of me. A short, unkempt, sheepish-looking man. And he enquired...he wanted to know where to find you. I don’t know why he’s looking for you so desperately. He sure gave me a jolt. I couldn’t get here fast enough to tell you. Now, if you’ll give me your hand.”
The doctor turned to Beni Madhav Samant. “Do you see, Samant, how this elephant of a man has been reduced to skin and bone!” Turning to the actor, he continued, “Do you have to keep yourself covered and sweat buckets for nothing? You don’t have a fever! Come over to the bed and let me examine you properly. You know something, your obsession with the stage has done you in. Keeping late hours, eating at odd times and drinking god knows how many cups of tea a day—they’ve taken their toll.”
There was a brief silence. The old actor’s big brooding eyes wore a faraway look. “Get me the box of medals, will you?” he asked his wife.
She brought the box, wiping the glass lid with the end of her sari. There were ten rows of gold and silver medals pinned to a velvet cloth—ten twinkling medals in all the rows but one, the ninety-nine medals shining like stars. He had worn every one of these on his proud chest amidst deafening applause under blinding floodlights. Just one more and there would have been a hundred and his sky would have been filled from end to end.
All eyes inevitably rested on the vacant space in the last row, and a feeling of acute discomfort permeated the air.
“You realise, don’t you, doctor,” said Beni Madhav, “that’s he’s a rare talent in this land.”
The doctor fiddled with his stethoscope, a scowl on his face. “You don’t feel well, do you?” he enquired, looking at the patient.
There was a knock on the door and they all started. The door opened and the actor’s grandson Jhampu, his daughter’s son, parted the curtains and skipped in. The rapid patter of his tiny feet brought a sense of relief.
“Back so soon from your lessons?” Jhampu’s grandmother asked. “The tutor didn’t show up or what?”
Jhampu said nothing. He went straight to his grandfather and looked at him intently. Then he took his arithmetic book from his bag and said, “Look, grandpa, there’s one sum even the tutor couldn’t solve. I told him my grandpa could. You bring any sum and he’ll solve it. It’s not for nothing that his pictures are in the history books!”
Suddenly everyone grew restive. A lump rose in the old actor’s throat. Stretched out on the bed, he whispered hoarsely: “Turn back, Queen Mother, go back. Mother of the Pandavas, go away. Consign me to oblivion. I’m but the offspring of a lowly charioteer. Humiliation, defeat and death are in store for me. Mother, please go away...” The audience held its breath. Tears glistened in every eye. The gaslights sputtered and hissed. The sound of a falling straw could be mistaken for a winnowing fan... A wan smile creased the old actor’s face and tears welled up in his eyes. Who’s that dwarfish, seedy-looking man waiting in the wings? Why is he grinning like the manager of the Royal Painters?
“Grandpa,” said Jhampu. “I’ve got a medal for you.” He took out a tin badge distributed for Army Day and pinned it on his grandfather’s chest.
The old actor was overwhelmed. The seas roared. There were peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. A tumultuous commotion. The sky opened up. The emperor stood in the wings. The mighty Karna, clad in hibiscus-red robes, glowed like the fiery sun. A small, seedy-looking man stood beside him, holding him by his little finger, ready to take him backstage. The audience would see the emperor no more.
Who are these people pulling and tugging at the old white sheet? Why are they doing that? What are they looking for in the folds and wrinkles of an old dress? Who are they looking for?
Story selected by Mini Krishnan.
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