THE JUDGEMENT
(Short story)
Dr. H. S. VISWESWARIAH
Kolar Gold Fields is not one city but many rolled
into one. Oorgaum merges into Robertsonpet,
which touches Marikuppam through Andersonpet.
Coromandel connects Oorgaum
with Champion reefs and Marikuppam. Thousands of
miners are littered all over the place. When workers go inside the mines they
forget their past–like miners elsewhere–and do not expect any future. Therefore
one can only say that the miners are not individuals but only types. The story
of one swarthy miner is nearly enough to reveal the secrets of success and
failure of those innumerable inhabitants of that small stretch of land on the
globe called Kolar Gold Fields. Some say the yellow
metal there has devalued human lives.
Though broad-browed, snub-nosed Linganna–the
cynosure of our story–worked to die in Oorgaum mines,
he lived in one of a hundred huts which had been constructed by the City
Corporation in its drive for slum-clearance. The mud-walled, bamboo-thatched
hut–where he lived with lakshmi–was good enough but
for the miasma that came out of the gutter and the dung-heaps
of the lane.
Linganna looked at Sundays in two ways: it
was a paid holiday when he could curl himself up and sit restfully on the
stone-slab in front of the hut. But it was also no good in a sense because it
would only make him linger over his problems for a longer time. This Sunday was
particularly unbearable because round-faced lakshmi
started having pains right at six. Women of the neighbourhood
poured in and out with hoohas unable to witness the
pains which Lakshmi heroically bore for over ten
hours. When rattle-boned Sita, the midwife, told
Linganna the news of the birth of a male child, he threw both his arms into the
air and went into raptures. But he burst into tears on learning that his wife
had expired in the struggle. For a middle-aged miner, the birth of a male child
was an asset, whereas the death of his Astarte was a
loss.
A five-pound baby of delicate features and
brown complexion wasn’t expected to survive for more than a week by the
prophetesses around. Severe winter had made the atmosphere dismal, which was
already dull on account of the absence of the jingling bangles and tinkling
trinkets of his wife Lakshmi. Courageous though
Linganna was, he was weakened by the surrounding sibyls. “The child’s lips are
dry” one crone would say and another would unthinkingly add, “There is hardly
any sign of the coming of hair on the head,” Yet another would outdo them both
by saying, “Padma’s baby had a similar powdery skin.
On the third day I myself buried her.”
The mantle of a nurse fell on his rather
unwilling shoulders after Lakshmi. Was a rough-faced miner–worse than a grave
digger–cut out to rear a dying child? Did he have patience to withstand the
nuisance of a baby? For three days after sunset, sitting in the dim light of
his abode, he would ask a thousand questions to himself and say” Enough of this
life. Oh God! Show me some way.” He would then spread his crackled and
crackling mat and lie down and close his eyes.
On the midnight of Wednesday-Thursday a
brilliant idea passed through his usually dull head. The Sanitary Inspector of
the locality Mr. Narasimha Murty was tremendously
popular among the miners as a mild and generous man. Though he had been married
for fifteen years, he didn’t have any children. If Linganna managed to pass on
the child to Murty, the child was certain to be adopted and well looked after.
After all, the welfare of the child was of paramount importance. Instead of
allowing, the child to die uncared for – as many opined –should he not take the child and make a gift of him? Or should
he leave the child in the vicinity of Murty’s
bungalow without telling anything to anybody. When pale Parvati
adopted the child – Murty’s wife was sweet to all –
she would pamper him with the best food, the best clothes and the most
expensive education. Although the distance between his tiny hut and Murty’s big mansion wasn’t less than two kilometres, he would most discerningly supervise the growth
of his own darling child – as an
onlooker – without being known
to anyone as his natural father. He might tell his neighbours
– if anyone cared to ask him –
that the child died on an unwholesome night when he took and buried
him.
After thinking about the problem for three
days and nights, he took the momentous decision to carry out his plan on the
following gloomy Saturday night. At about midnight – when all the miners were apparently sleeping – he came out with the wrapped up child. A brisk walk of about twenty
minutes was enough to reach the Inspector’s mansion.
On arrival at the temple street – where the
Inspector resided – there wasn’t
even a dim street light. Added to the surrounding darkness, the enveloping
silence was killing. Stealthily he approached the gate. Linganna negotiated the
distance of about ten yards between the compound gate and the portico carefully
like a veteran thief. Crossing the steps leading to the front door, he turned
left and placed the child near the bedroom door. After so doing, he came out of
the compound gate and took to his heels.
The moaning of the child during the night was
loud enough for a woman of delicate constitution to hear. Parvati
became gradually widely awake. A dream-child began to unveil itself to Paru – that was how her husband called her – as she
intently heard the cries. How long the lady lolled in those luxuries of a
dream-child, it is difficult to say. But as the cries became intense, the dream
must have departed. Feeling partly alarmed and partly delighted, she woke up
her husband.
“Don’t you hear the cries of a little one?”
she drawled in his ears.
“What...? Where...?” obviously the husband
was perplexed.
“Get up. Open this door. The cry is from this
side” – directed the wife.
Pompadour Murty sprang to his feet like a
trained athlete finding the situation quite amusing. Switching on the portico
light, he opened the door fearlessly. The lady followed Murty, who went out. To
their utter surprise they found an abandoned child gorgeously arrayed in rags.
The foundling appeared to have come fresh from the womb of his mother. Paru followed her first instinct of seizing the child and
taking him inside. For the first time in her adult life, she applied all her
known art of nursing the lately arrived prince of darkness. Not only she forgot
her sleep but also her surroundings. Paru became so
totally absorbed in fondling, kissing and caressing the prince that even the
natural mother would have envied it. Love’s night became noon. There was hardly
anything that elegant Murty could do except play second fiddle to his wife.
Until day-break they discussed a hundred
things about the child as they occurred to them.
The day dawned with the melodious chirping of
birds. The winter sun rose effulgently bathing all objects with his comforting
light. The canas appeared lustrously green.
Chrysanthemums bloomed in white, red and yellow all around inside the compound
wall of Murty’s house. Winter had never been so glorious in K. G. F. as it was now.
It being a Sunday, Murty made himself completely free. Paru
appeared busier than she was. The Sanitary Inspector managed to get a
feeding-bottle though it was a holiday. The baby was washed with warm water. Paru with her deepset eyes took
care to apply tilakam to the child’s forehead and eyetex to eye-lashes. The tiniest multi-coloured
garments arrived in fresh packages around nine. The child who was completely
naked and free was bound hand and foot with luxurious outfit. By nine a
thorough transformation had been effected in the appearance of little Rajkumar.
Needless to say Parvati’s
entire lifetime’s ambition of having a male child had been fully realized. It
appeared as though she had lived all these days for this glorious moment. She
was overwhelmed with various emotions. Some made her weep and some made her
laugh. She was bewildered by the tragic days she had passed through in the
past. The delight of the moment, however, had slighted her former sufferings.
The stigma of sterility had gone. The era of woman’s responsibility had arrived.
Parvati swore in her delicate heart to make Shiva Prasad – for so they baptised him
overnight – the observed of all
observers.
The idea that she could claim the child as
her own if she lived with her parents at
When Parvati
returned to Robertsonpet with one-year-old Shiva Prasad, her friends and relatives couldn’t recognize her at
all. She had thoroughly changed. The happiness that came with the acquisition
of a child made her somewhat buxsome. Parvati’s unused breasts had considerably swelled with the
induction of more flesh. Her heart had become tenderer
making her more compassionate and charitable. Every morning she made it a point
to wait for the arrival of at least two beggars to feed them. Whenever any beggar passed through her house she made it a habit to invite
him to offer at least a handful of rice. As days rolled by
her acts of charity assumed many facets and different dimensions.
The Murtys tried
all sorts of garments on Shiva. They gave him the best milk they could buy. The
child’s pockets were invariably stuffed with chocolates and biscuits. Toys
began to pile up in show-cases. The intention of the Inspector was to give him
a good convent education. When Shiva grew to be five, he was put in an English
medium school – as was the fashion those days – much to the chagrin of Parvati,
who incidentally held the view that
English education might alienate him from her. Not long before the boy entered
the college, he was sixteen. Smart as Shiva Prasad
was, his face was tinged with a brown complexion, though his cheeks always had
a crimson dye. He had inherited a broad-brow and a snub-nose. When he stood up
he was tall, erect and sportive. Paru enjoyed her
darling boy’s sight, who she thought was destined to become a doctor.
Lean Linganna doted sentimentally at a
distance on the boy as he grew year by year into manhood. No one marked his ambulations or suspected them which were only a few
formerly–when the child grew into a boy – became more frequent near Murty’s bungalow. Linganna’s love
for “my lad” – that was how he addressed Shiva within himself – surpassed all expectations as the boy became
a colleger. Linganna invited Shiva’s attention on the
streets by various monkeyish tricks. Sometimes he
even accosted him without any sound reason.
I shouldn’t hesitate to relate here what
later on became a one-act drama that Linganna enacted in the presence of his
son. Though he wasn’t a trained actor, despair drove him to display
histrionics. Once, while Shiva was returning home on a cloudy evening,
pretending to suffer from convulsions, Linganna fell right in front of the boy.
Shiva lost no time in running up to his father to resuscitate the old man.
Murty promptly rushed there and pitied the old man – whom he quickly recognized
him to be a miner – and took him
home. After sprinkling old water on the man’s face, he gave him cool drinks.
The emaciated coolie felt quite soothed and happy.
After recovery – which was enacted with
impressive dexterity – Linganna took liberty to embrace and kiss
Shiva like a deranged man. The so-called blood-relationship, which was so
tenuous when Shiva was a sickly infant of six days, had now grown to be a tower
of love. Poor Linganna! Years had told on him. Not only his brow had contracted
into a field of furrows but his cheeks had become a pair of hollow cups. The
knee-caps had become loose. The joint-tendons had become soft and prickly. He
had therefore taken to acting.
Refreshing himself while enjoying the liberal
hospitality of Murtys, Linganna returned home rather reluctantly.
Age, loneliness and the fear of future made life unbearable to Linganna. More than ever, he became seized of his helplessness. The fear that if he allowed Shiva to grow further with the Murtys, there wasn’t even a single ray of hope for him in life, grew more and more obsessive with him.
“What shall I do to get him back?” – so he asked himself on a Wednesday morning
before going out.
“I can’t bear this torture of childlessness.
I want to see my son by my bedside at the time of croaking. Why not I
meet the boy and tell him all facts plainly?” – so he thought within himself
while adjusting his cummerbund.
Much as he desired to argue the matter within
himself he couldn’t do so because of his mental weakness. The problem before
his ramshackle frame was how to persuade Shiva to get back. He thought about
the pros and cons of the matter. When he thought about himself and his future,
he felt like compelling Shiva to come back to his hut. But when he thought
about the boy’s future, he felt enormously discouraged.
Linganna twisted his towel on his head more
firmly and tied it. He twirled his moustache a little bit. He pulled the ends
of his dhoti from under his bottom and tied them together to his waist at the
back. Taking a bamboo stick, he trotted off to Oorgaum.
On his way back in the evening, Linganna met
one of his old acquaintances by name Krishna Murty, who was a clerk with a
lawyer. They together stood on the road near George Park and made enquiries of
each other. Knowing him as he did for long, Linganna slowly made a clean breast
of his worries to him not imagining that there could be a legal remedy for his
problem.
“When the child was yours you didn’t want him
but now that you see him blooming like a flower you want him?” – asked Krishna
Murty with a sarcastic twist of his mouth.
There came the smell of a dead and decaying
rat from a nearby gutter while they were conversing with each other.
“Yes sir, the candle of my life is almost
burnt out” conceded the miner.
“Well. Don’t lose hope. Don’t be afraid. I am
here to help you. Bring ten rupees this very evening. I give you complete
assurance that Shiva will be yours if only you lodged a suit in the local
court” said the legal luminary.
After Krishna Murty had explained the whole
legal procedure, Linganna lost no time in filing a law-suit in the court.
Linganna hadn’t known the primrose thorns of
going to a court. The first-fruits of his visit left a bitter taste in his
mouth. Adjournings after adjournings
the suit dragged on like a dredge for months without an end. There was a
continual depletion of whatever humble savings he had made out of daily wages. The lawyer and his clerk always held out
bright promises. When the hearings started Linganna was left with no strength
to see it to the end. Becoming tired of the proceedings, he felt that it was
wrong on his part to have taken the matter to a court. As the natural father,
he sincerely felt like wishing his boy well and not bring him back to a hut for
selfish purposes. He stretched back his imagination to those good old days and
remembered his original intention in leaving the child with the Inspector. He
cursed his beastly existence that had drained him of that fountain of love and
finer feelings he had in earlier days. Now that Shiva knew that he was not the
Inspector’s son, Linganna felt it enough: If the boy had any love for his
father, he would one day throw himself into his father’s arms. Therefore he
determined not to legally force his son to join him in a beggarly hut. Further,
he would tell the judge that Shiva wasn’t his son at all.
Demented Linganna went to the court on the
great hearing day. Preparations were afoot on all fronts at the court. Many had
come to wish the Inspector success but there wasn’t anyone to encourage him.
Although the advocates had briefed their clients well in advance, the clients
had –it would seem –prepared their own answers to the questions the judge might
put them.
Judge Lakkappa,
known more for suave manners than for his knowledge of law, came in black
–except for his collar – and occupied the high-backed, red-upholstered chair.
He thumped the table with a wooden hammer and called the complainant to the
witness box. Peremptorily, the judge asked Linganna.
“Say...is Shiva your son?” – there was a
sepulchral silence in the main hall of the court.
A fragrant smell of incense wafted across
from some unknown source as Linganna supporting himself on the wooden frame
looked at the judge in a prayerful attitude and said in feeble tones:
“No, Your honour.
Shiva is not at all my son. He is the Inspector’s son. I beg your pardon for
telling a lie.”
There was a wave of subdued murmur. Standersby sat down and those who sat stood up. The judge
was puzzled to find the complainant arguing against himself. The man who
brought the case before the court was taking it back. However, the judge used
his discretion and asked Murty if Shiva was his son at all. The incense continued to emanate
when Murty came to the witness box and said,
“I beg Your pardon. My lord, Shiva is not my son at all. He is a foundling. Somebody had wrapped the child in torn clothes and left him near my bedroom some eighteen years back. I am sorry I told you a lie. Probably the child is Linganna’s.
On hearing the confessional statement of the
Sanitary Inspector, Parvati, who sat on a bench in
the court hall, swooned and fell on Shiva Prasad who
sat next to her. She was ordered to be conducted out of the main hall to the
side wings. There was once again general murmur.
Judge Lakkappa
thumped the table several times in order to restore order in the hall. He
himself was perplexed beyond reckoning. Both the complainant and the defendant
were disowning the boy. As the boy was more than eighteen, the judge found no
harm in calling him to the witness box and finding out from him who happened to
be his father. Shiva was asked to swear and he was asked with whom he preferred
to stay as son.
Obviously the boy didn’t like to go with the
miner, who had neither a house nor a social status. He confessed before the honourable judge that he wanted to be with the Inspector,
as he had been known all these days as his son throughout K. G. F. He chose to
be with Parvati, who had tended him with meticulous
care.
A brief judgement
was delivered at five in favour of Mr. Narasimha Murty, the Sanitary Inspector. Parvati, the happiest of all persons, hugged and kissed
Shiva several times. Murty too was happy because his legal right over the boy
was established without his being dishonest. Both Parvati
and Murty pitied Linganna as he left the court-room casting a side-long glance
at Shiva Prasad.
After a few days the Murtys
learnt that Linganna died of a heart-attack.