THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING CAP

(Short story)

MANOJ DAS

In recounting this episode of two decades ago, my motive is certainly not to raise a laugh at the cost of Sri Moharana or Babu Virkishore, then Hon’ble Minister of Fishes and Fine Arts of my State. Far from that, I rather wish my friends and readers to share the sympathy I have secretly nursed in my heart for the two gentlemen over two decades now.

Sri Moharana was a well-to-do man. His was the only pukka house in an area of twenty villages. Whitewashed on the eve of the independence of India, the house shone as a sort of tourist attraction to the villagers nearby. They stopped and looked at it whenever they passed by it, for none could overlook the symbolism in the operation that had been carried out after nearly half a century.

Sri Moharana had a considerable reputation as a conscientious and generous man He was an exemplary host with a pair of ponds full of choice fishes, and a number of well-eared-for cows. He was a happy villager.

Came the independence. As is well-known, the hoary land of India has had four major castes from time immemorial. But during the days immediately preceding independence a new caste was emerging all over the country, the caste of patriots. 15th August, 1947, gave a big boost to their growth. Almost in every village, beside the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras were seen cropping up a couple or so of patriots.

It was observed that the little fisheries of Sri Moharana were often exercised in honour of these new people. And observers soon knew that Sri Moharana too had lately taken to the cult of patriotism. Even, as I understood later, he had nursed the ambition to become a member of the State Legislature. The incident I relate below took place at the very first phase of his endeavour in that direction. I witnessed the incident (my maternal uncle’s house which I frequently visited being just near Sri Moharana’s house) as a small boy. When I narrate it today, I have of course to do it with the understanding of matters which time is bound to have developed in me.

In those early days of national ministries there were no deputy or sub-deputy ministers. All were full-fledged Hon’ble Ministers and Babu Virkishore who held the portfolios of Fishes and Fine Arts hailed from our district. The sponsors of Sri Moharana thought it proper that his debut into politics should have the blessings of Babu Virkishore.

In those days a minister’s daily life was made up of mostly speech-making at public receptions. A reception was arranged for Babu Virkishore with Sri Moharana as the Chairman of the Reception Committee. Sri Moharana’s huge ancestral cane chair wore a linen with the best village seamstress lacing on it a pair of herons with two big fishes in their beaks. For a fortnight all the afternoon sessions of the village lower primary school were devoted to the practice by the children of the welcome song. Among the many unforeseen phenomena the spirit of the time had wrought was the composition of this song; for the composer, the head pundit of the school, had already lived sixty-seven years without any poetic activity. The refrain of the song still raises inaudible echoes in me. Its literal translation would be:

O mighty minister, tell us, O tell us,

How do you administer this long, and broad universe!

The rest of the song catalogues the great changes nature and humanity experienced on the occasion of the minister’s coming: how the sun almost blushed in a romantic happiness that morning, how all and sundry birds recited a particular raga, and with what an anxiety the womenfolk waited to blow their conch-shells when the minister would step into the village.

I know that nowadays the ministers do not enjoy such glory. But it was all different then. We the rustic children wrangled over several questions: What does a minister eat? What does he think? Does he sleep or not? Does he ever suffer from colic or cold?

Sri Moharana himself was full of excitement. He used to sleep for a full hour in the afternoon. But he gave up this habit at least ten days prior to the reception. All his time passed examining and re-examining the details of the arrangements. Yet he did not look sure.

At last the big day came. The minister got down from his jeep when it entered the very first welcome arch at the outskirts of the village. He was profusely garlanded by Sri Moharana there and was requested to get into the jeep as the destination was still a furlong away. But the minister smiled and gave some statement which meant that great though destiny had made him, he loved to keep his feet on the earth! Moharana and his friends looked enchanted.

While hundreds applauded and shouted “Babu Virkishore ki jai” and “Bharatmata ki jai”, etc., the elephantine minister plodded through the street, to embarrassment, as the atmosphere seemed to suggest, of the poor, naked earth.

And I still remember the look of Sri Mobarana when the minister’s long, round arm rested on his shrunken neck – a look which I have seen once or twice later in my life in dying people who had lived a life contented and complete. Sri Moharana’s look suggested: “What more, what more, O my mortal life, could you expect from the world? Well, well!”

All the people were either shouting slogans or gaping – almost all the villagers – even the invalids – for many of whom it was the occasion of a lifetime. We, the half-naked, pot-bellied, uncivilised kids walked parallel to the minister at a safe distance and were feeling extremely small and guilty.

At Sri Moharana’s place the minister and his entourage were treated with tender cocoanut juice, followed, half an hour later, by the most luxurious lunch I had ever seen, with about twenty dishes around the sweetened, ghee-baked rice.

Soon the minister retired to the cabin set apart for him. Though it was summer, the cabin’s windows being open to a big pond and a grove, there was enough air to lull the giant of a man to a sound sleep. All precautions had been taken to see that no noise whatsoever would originate from anywhere in the village to disturb the minister’s midsummer noon’s dream.

I had by then separated myself from my companions. Being ambitious, I was eager to steal as much physical nearness to the great man as possible. And this – the minister sleeping – seemed to be the most ideal condition for achieving my goal.

Mustering all my self-confidence, I slowly approached the window upon the pond. This was the rear side of the house. The minister’s P. A. and others were on the opposite side.

While I stood near the window and was having the first shock of disillusionment in my life about great men, for the minister was snoring like any ordinary man, something most extraordinary happened. Speechless I was already; the incident made me thoughtless.

Through the window I had observed that the minister’s egg-bald head rested on a gigantic pillow while his white cap lay on a table near his cot. Now, I saw the irresponsible, notorious Jhandoo bounce towards the window like a bolt from the blue, pick up the cap and throwing a meaningful glance at me disappear inside the grove.

Even when my dumbfoundedness ended, I could not shout, partly because of my deep affection for Jhandoo, knowing that the consequence of his crime could be fatal to him, and partly for fear that the minister’s snoring would terminate. I was not sure, between a great man’s cap and his snoring which was more valuable.

I returned home pensive. But before long I could hear a suppressed but exciting noise. I could guess the matter. Crossing into Sri Moharana’s compound I saw the minister’s P. A. flitting about as subtly as a snake and mumbling again and again, “Mysterious, mysterious!” The minister was obviously inside the cabin. But none dared to go in. Sri Moharana stood thunderstruck. No less so the other patriots. The Public Relations Officer was heard saying, “The Hon’ble Minister does not mind the loss of the cap so much as the way it disappeared. Evidently, there is a deep-rooted conspiracy. The seriousness of the matter can never be exaggerated. In fact, I fear, it may have devastating consequences on the politics of the land.”

I could see Sri Moharana literally shaking. He was sweating like an ice-cream stick, so profusely, that I was afraid at that rate he might completely melt away in a few hours.

When I saw Sri Moharana’s condition, the conflict within me as to whether I should keep the knowledge of the mystery a secret or should disclose it, came to an end. I signalled him to follow me which he did in all eagerness. A drowning man will indeed clutch at a straw.

After I told him what had happened he stood dumb for a moment, with eyes closed. Then wiping sweat from his forehead he smiled like a patient whose disease had been diagnosed all right, but it was an incurable disease. He then patted me and said, “My son, nice you told me. But keep it to yourself, strictly. I will reward you later.”

The incident had thrown a wet blanket on the occasion. From the sepulchral silence of the minister’s room only his intermittent coughing could be heard. And every time he coughed a fresh spray of coolness damped the spirit of the people in the veranda and around the courtyard.

I went over to the kids. They were full of anxiety. One said that if the thief was caught, the police would hang him on the big banian tree beside the river. “Several offshoots from its biggest bough have already been removed, perhaps by way of preparation,” someone said. “Otherwise all the villagers may be jailed for many many years,” said another kid. Among us there were even such naives who believed that the minister’s cap was a sort of Alladin’s lamp; anyone who puts it on commands the ministerial sway like anyone who possessed the lamp commanding the genie.

But the situation soon changed. I saw the minister and Sri Moharana coming out to the veranda. I did not know how Sri Moharana had explained the matter to the minister. But the minister was all smiles. He was the most remarkable smile he had hitherto displayed. By then at least half a dozen caps had been procured for him. But he appeared with his head bare. Even to a boy like me it was obvious that his baldpate wore an aura of martyrdom.

Not less than five thousand people bad gathered before the specially constructed pandal when the minister ascended it, the remarkable smile still hanging on to him. Sri Moharana’s niece, the lone High School-educated girl of the area, garlanded the minister. A prolonged thunderous applause greeted the event; for, that was the first time our people saw what they had only heard of in the tales of ancient Swayamvaras, a grownup girl garlanding a man in public. Then the chorus “O mighty minister” was sung to the accompaniment of two harmoniums, a violin and a khol because it had been tuned in the kirtan style.

Then it was Sri Moharana’s turn to say a few words of welcome as the Chairman of the Reception Committee. I saw him (I was standing just below the pandal) moving his legs and hands in a very awkward fashion. Certainly that was nervousness. But with a successful exercise of will-power he grabbed the glittering mike-pole and managed to speak for nearly an hour giving a chronological account of Babu Virkishore’s achievements and conveying gratitude, on behalf of the nation, to the departed souls of the minister’s parents but for whom the world would have been without the minister.

I was happy that Sri Moharana did well in his first public speech. But the greatest shock of my life was just then coming in the concluding observations of Sri Moharana.

Well, many would take Sri Moharana as a pukka politician. But I can swear that it was out of his goodness–a goodness unbalanced by excitement–that Sri Moharana uttered the lie. He said, his voice raised in a crescendo, “My brothers and sisters, you all must have heard about the mysterious disappearance of the Hon’ble Minister’s cap. You think that the property is stolen, don’t you? Naturally. But not so, ladies and gentlemen, not so!” Sri Moharana smiled mysteriously. The minister nodded his bald head which glowed like a satellite. Sri Moharana resumed, “You all are dying to know what happened to the cap. Isn’t that so? Yes, yes, naturally, you are dying. Well, it is like this: a certain nobleman of our area has taken it away. Why? Well, to preserve it as a sacred memento. He was obliged to take it away secretly because otherwise the Hon’ble Minister of Fishes and Fine Arts, who is a burning example of humility, would never have permitted our friend the nobleman to view the cap as anything sacred! “Sri Moharana stopped and brought out of his pocket a handkerchief full of coins and holding it before the audience, said, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, our friend the nobleman has requested me to place this humble amount of one hundred and one rupees at the disposal of the Hon’ble Minister for a little use in his life’s mission, the service of the people.”

Sri Moharana bowed and handed over the money to the minister, who, with a most gracious gesture, accepted it. The emotion of the audience was at its highest. Applause and various words of wonder and appreciation broke out like a hurricane, so much so that even the minister and Sri Moharana clapped their hands.

Then, of course, the minister spoke for two and a half hours, at the end of which he declared that as a mark of respect to the unknown admirer of his, he had decided to remain bareheaded for that whole night though the good earth did not lack caps and, in fact, a surge of caps had already tried to crown his undaunted head.

Soon my shock gave away to a double-edged feeling for Sri Moharana; an appreciation of his presence of mind and a sadness for his having had to spend one hundred and one rupees to cover Jhandoo’s mischief.

That night all the respectable people of the area partook of the dinner that the Reception Committee gave in honour of the minister. Glances of awe and esteem were frequently thrown over the minister’s baldpate and homages paid to the honourable thief.

But when I saw Sri Moharana in the morning, I could immediately read in his eyes the guiltiness that haunted him–at least whenever he came across me. Sri Moharana had never uttered a lie; but at last when he uttered a lie, he had to utter it before thousands of people. God apart, at least there was one creature, that is myself, who knew that he was no longer a man of truth.

The minister, however, looked extremely delighted. He did not seem to notice with what constraint Sri Moharana was conducting himself before him.

As last came the moment of the minister’s departure. He was served with a glass of sweetened curd in his cabin. While sipping it slowly, he said, in a voice choked with curd and emotion, “Well, Moharana, ha ha! the way things are moving, ha ha! I am afraid, ha ha! people would start snatching away my clothes, ha ha! and ha ha! I may have to go about ha ha! naked! ha ha ha! But I don’t mind! ha ha! It is a matter of love ! ha ha ha!”

The minister finished the curd and came out to the rear veranda facing the pond and the grove to wash his mouth. Sri Moharana followed him with water in a mug. There was nobody in the veranda except me. My presence there was not accidental. A few minutes before I had observed that the rascal Jhandoo, playing with the Minister’s cap, was slowly approaching the veranda. Seldom had I wished for anything so ardently as I wished then for Jhandoo to go unnoticed by the minister. Well, I have perhaps not yet said who this Jhandoo was. He was a monkey, not in a figurative sense, but a real little monkey. When he was an infant his mother had taken shelter inside Sri Moharana’s house in order to save her male child from the usual wrath of its father. Sri Moharana was not at home and his servants killed the mother monkey. Sri Moharana became extremely sad, did not eat for one and a half day and, to compensate for the wrong done, nursed the baby monkey, christened Jhandoo, with great affection. After Jhandoo had grown up a little he often escaped into the grove. He was half domesticated and half wild. He played with everybody and everybody tolerated him. We the kids liked him very much.

To my horror I saw Jhandoo rushing towards us from the other side of the pond. I made an effort to warn Sri Moharana, but in vain. Jhandoo reached there in the twinkle of an eye. He sat down between the minister and Sri Moharana. He put the cap once on his own head and, then taking it off, offered it to the minister with a very genial gesture.

My heart-beat had trebled. Looking at Sri Moharana’s face I saw an extremely pitiable image pale as death. The surprised minister mumbled out, “Er ... er ... isn’t this the very cap taken away by the nobleman?”

And something most fantastic came out of the dry lips of Sri Moharana who seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. He said, “Yes, yes, this is the nobleman….”

His eyes bulging out, the minister managed to say, “What? ... What did you say?.. Well?”

But Sri Moharana was no longer in a position to say anything. He broke into tears. Next moment I saw the Hon’ble Minister of Fishes and Fine Arts weeping too.

The P. A.’s voice was heard from the opposite veranda, “Sir, the jeep is ready.”

The minister gulped the mugful of water and walked towards the jeep. Sri Moharana followed him. Their reddened eyes and drawn faces were interpreted by the people as marks of the sorrow of separation.

Sri Moharana’s political endeavour is not known to have gone any farther. And it is strange that the Hon’ble Minister Babu Virkishore who was willing to be robbed of his clothes was completely forgotten in politics soon. I strongly feel that it was the episode of the cap that changed the course of their lives.

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