The Cat and Shakespeare (11 page)

And so on, up to the bus stop and there is always Vishwanath Iyer, who gives you some when you get on. All the office-going people get in together and snuff together, and by the time the bus has crossed the railway overbridge and passed the office, you have had three pinches. You have to wipe the front of your coat to remove every trace of this dark trituration. It looks disreputable going to the office with a garland of dark powder. Then you go in, and going in you see the cat, you see the cage. Once in your own office, you hear the meow-meow. You say: ‘John, what is it?’ John the third clerk laughs and hides his face in the palm of his hand. ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ shouts Bhoothalinga Iyer. Abraham comes in. He too has snuff on his nose. His beard is ever like Jesus Christ’s. And he says: ‘John has played a trick on Govindan Nair.’ ‘What trick? A ration office and such tricks. Where are the rats?’ ‘There are no rats, sir. It’s a cat.’ ‘A cat, when there is no rat? But I thought I saw a rat trap.’ ‘Yes, sir, but the hook has been removed, and there’s a cat.’ For Bhoothalinga Iyer rats existed and not cats. Ration shops have rats. That is true. And you must have rat traps. But this meow-meow business—Bhoothalinga Iyer was sure Govindan Nair, that clever rascal (all Nairs have enough Brahmin blood to be clever, Bhoothalinga Iyer used to say, but not enough to understand the truth; truth is the privilege of the Brahmin)—yes, yes, cleverness gone elsewhere always produces these disasters. You have, for example, a cat on your table and in a rat cage.

‘John!’ he called.

The clerk called, John came in. John had some money in the Imperial Bank, so he thought himself infallible, he said: ‘Yes, sir, what is the matter?’

‘What is this nonsense about the cat?’

By now Shivaraman, Syed Sahib and Muthukrishna Pillay had joined him at the door.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Govindan Nair always talks of a mother cat. It carries the kitten by the scruff of its neck. That is why he is so carefree. He says, “Learn the way of the kitten. Then you’re saved. Allow the mother cat, sir, to carry you,”’ said John, and suppressed his resentful laughter.

Bhoothalinga Iyer was a Brahmin. For him a cat, a
marjaram,
was a pariah animal. It was sly, unclean, unfaithful. It was evil to see a cat first thing in the morning. It was evil if the wretched creature crossed from right to left as you went to office. You had to go back home and visit the sanctuary, and beg the gods to bless you. Then you could catch the bus. Also, cats’ hair, if it fell into your milk, was worse than gall. It made you vomit blood. So altogether the cat was not a creature to be thought about. A rat, yes, it was the vehicle of Lord Ganesha himself. In every temple you could see a Ganesha and under every Ganesha there was his vehicle, the rat, like Lord Subramanya had the peacock, or Shiva the bull. But the cat, which god ever rode a cat? Nobody did—so it was improper, unholy, beyond thought. What is beyond thought cannot be thought about-—it is evil to the temple street. Evil has a name, a text and a commentary. Can you speak without text? You could therefore never say you can prove the cat is holy. Nobody, no god, rode on it. ‘Chee-Chee!’ sneezed Bhoothalinga Iyer, contemplating the cat.

Poocha
is what a cat is called in Malayalam. But Bhoothalinga Iyer always used the Sanskrit word
marjaram.
It carried its own condemnation. It needed no more explanations. It made you talk less. Abraham understood. John did not.

‘Take it away. Throw it on the roof or anywhere you like.’

‘Sir, it’s a goodly Persian cat, sir. I thought I would make a present of it to my colleague. Have you any objection, sir?’

‘What objection can I have that you give a present to your colleague? Notorious are the Nairs for the mess they live in. Maybe the cat will clear the rats. Do you know his wife?’

‘How would I know her, sir?’

‘Your wife might know his wife.’

‘Sometimes we meet at the cinema. She is a grand lady and from the Theyoorkovil family. They are well spoken of everywhere.’

‘Well, so be it,’ he said, and took out his snuff bottle.

That meant you could go. The clerks all came back to their places. They laughed into their files. Each one would look at the other, and when the cat said meow-meow, it meant Govindan Nair would be in at any time and what fun we would have. Only Abraham was downcast. This did not forbode good. He wanted the good spread all over the world. He was doing good distributing rice.

Then they heard the big, thumping steps of Govindan Nair. He always came up the steps two at a time as he did three ration cards at a time. It saves energy and it is such fun, he said. So, he was there before they could say anything. They looked composed and silent, very anxious about the distribution of ration cards in the state of Travancore, Northern Division.

Govindan Nair came to the cage and said:
‘Poochi-poochi.
You are a nice fellow. Are you a he or a she?’ How could he ask such a question? Govindan Nair’s hair stood on end. He closed his eyes. He understood. Now, he reverently opened the cage and, taking his coat off, started stroking the cat. She allowed him to do it, for he had such respect. ‘What a nice gift to make,’ he said. Unable to control himself, John burst out laughing, holding his belly. ‘Meow-meow,’ cried the cat, and jumped on the Ummathur District desk. ‘Ah,
Poochi-poochi
,’ said Govindan Nair, full of tenderness. ‘Do not go so far north, my lady. I want to build you a house. Where do you come from?’ he said, stroking her again. She jumped on top of the stationery almirah. ‘Ugh, ugh, ugh! ‘ laughed Guptan Nair, the extra clerk, trying to hold his laughter in his pocket. The cat now jumped straight on to Abraham’s table. The file threads were red and tassels made them look like toys. The cat started playing. It was obviously a civilized cat. One does not see cats like this everywhere. It must have come from a house with many children. ‘Chee-chee!’ sneezed Bhoothalinga Iyer. The cat jumped to the ceiling and fell into the outstretched arms of Govindan Nair. John was holding his belly and laughing. His joke had worked. ‘There’s a letter from the Ration Office, B. Division, Kolayathur. He wants to know the number of sacks of rice sent by the goods train. Was it on this expedition the railway line was waylaid? And the seventeen sacks stolen? He is worried about how the movement of rice came to the knowledge of the public,’ said John.

Putting the cat back into the cage, Govindan Nair laughed and as if he were spitting out his cigarette stump, he said: ‘You.’

‘I what?’

‘Yes, you what? This is the question,’ he said, coming to John’s table with perfect equanimity.

‘I don’t understand,’ said John, standing up.

‘I am not your boss, sit down,’ he said, putting his hand on his colleague’s shoulder. ‘You have money in the Imperial Bank.’

‘Yes, so I have. My father left me an estate.’

‘My father, sir, also existed. Otherwise I would not be here. And he also had a patch of land. I also sold some bit of it lately. It bought a house. But I have no money in the bank.’

‘So what? I just don’t understand.’

‘Abraham understands,’ he said, turning aside. Abraham had left his work and come to help anyone in need.

‘Nair?’ shouted Bhoothalinga Iyer. He was a good man but he wanted obedience from his subordinates.

‘Yes Sir,’ said Govindan Nair, going towards the boss’s office. The cat was saying ‘meow-meow’. John went over to Govindan Nair’s table and placed the cage on the floor, between the table and the almirah, well hidden away, so to say.

‘Nair, who brought this cat here?’

‘That is the question I wanted to ask you, sir. I wondered why cats run into such holy places.’ Govindan Nair knew the sensibilities of his boss.

‘Why do you think this office is holy?’

‘Sir, it is holy because we feed the starving. That which feeds the starving is holy. That which feeds the thirsty is sacred. That is why we worship the cow. This shop, this office is a very Kamadhenu.
¹³
We give what others want.’

‘I can’t spend my morning arguing mythology with you.’

‘Is there anything you want done, sir?’

‘Yes. Look into that Ummathur file. The seventeen sacks of rice lost from the goods wagon. The police were here yesterday evening. Please inquire.’

‘I’ll look into the papers immediately, sir, and let you know.’

Such matters were always entrusted to Govindan Nair. He had studied law up to the first year. He was too lazy to appear for the second year, so he became a clerk. Jobs are going at the Secretariat, war jobs, said a friend. He went in and came out with an order of appointment as it were. So I was saying, Govindan Nair knew a bit of law. Also as a student he was a grand speaker, and he was invited by schools for debates. That gave him a wide knowledge of Travancore. And when he married, his father-in-law was a subcollector. This took the father-in-law almost everywhere. This took Tangamma everywhere. So Govindan Nair learned a great deal about Travancore. And then he was a clever man. Hence these files went to him.

The Ummathur-seventeen-sacks case became famous. Even Madras got worried about it. Where had the sacks gone?

The office settled down to peaceful work now. The day was getting hot. The boss started calling for files. Downstairs, the scale made the usual ding-dong noise. Some people spoke in high voices and others at tangents. It was a Saturday morning, so there were not many people. Many of them had gone to the Kalayodhan fair. The rains would stop. The harvest would ripen. And the world yet be fair.

The cat lay upon its belly, its eyes wide and absolutely at rest. It did not say ‘meow’ even once after that.

Mother cat sits in a cage between the office table and the almirah. In the office there are thirteen clerks. And the boss Bhoothalinga Iyer sneezes from his room. His office is partitioned off and has a swinging door. Every time anyone goes in to answer the boss’s calls the cat seems to rise up. There’s a painful irritating grating—the hinges have not been oiled. When the boss calls and the hinges creak, the cat sits up on her haunches, then lies down again. When Govindan Nair lifts her cage (for it’s a she; after all, one discovered it) mother cat lifts up her head and says ‘meow-meow.’ Then, bending down, Govindan Nair gives his pen nib to her and she chews it. ‘Ah, she chews the origin of numbers,’ says Govindan Nair, to whom every mystery seems to open itself. If Lavoisier, as textbooks say, divided oxygen and hydrogen after years of experimentation, our Govindan Nair born in France would only have had to stand and say: ‘Water, show thyself to me!’ And hydrogen would have stood to one side somewhat big and bellied, and oxygen would have curled herself shy at his knees and suddenly gone shooting like a mermaid into the big sky. And he would not have lost his head in the Revolution. The British, too, chopped off their kings’ heads. A king chops off your head, or you chop his, but the police state is different from the state Truth policed. The fact is that when the mother cat carries you across the wall and to anywhere, there is nothing but space. Space is white and large and free. Why don’t you go there? Sir, you will say, kneading your snuff, but there is a wall. To which Govindan Nair makes answer: Like Usha, why don’t you put stones one over the other, and standing under the
bilva
tree, you can speak to Shridhar. You now say: That is why Shridhar died. Usha spoke over the wall and the cat carried him away. Funny, sir, that a child is carried away by a cat. Anyway, tell me where is Shridhar gone? He has gone to a house three storeys high. ‘Is that what you say, mother cat?’ asks Govindan Nair. The mother cat says ‘meow’. Govindan Nair cannot keep her in the cage any longer. He opens the cage and the cat leaps on to his lap. It is a trained cat. It knows what is right from what is wrong.

Children below were playing hide-and-seek among the rice bags. The ration shop was also their play-ground. While the mothers waited, the children played among the bags. Govindan Nair wanted to go down and play with the children, but there was this Ummathur file and the seventeen sacks lost. Who had stolen the sacks? Was it a gang of poor men or was it merchants’ marauders? Stroking the cat, his pen in his mouth, Govindan Nair was contemplating. When he thinks in this manner it means he wants to do something mechanical. He always carried a penknife with him, for sharpening pencils and such other things (including rose twigs). He usually took this out, pulled out the blade and started rubbing it up and down the edge of the table. Just where he worked on his files, he had written, or rather carved, many names—his own, the name of his boss, and Usha’s (I was surprised once when I went to visit him to find Usha’s name there, but it was there). Sharpening the knife, he started humming to himself.

‘Hey nonny, nonny, nonny . . .’