The Bashful Host and the Unbidden Guest

BY The late NAVARATNA RAJA RAO

(Rajasevaprasakta Navaratna Rama Rao, the father of the talented writer, chanced upon this sketch and was good enough to send it to the Triveni).

I live in a single room near our college and have my meals at some hotel nearby. It was last Sunday that I went out, intending to go for a long walk round the city, as I had nothing better to do that holiday. I like to mix with crowds, and observe people, for I rather fancy myself as a student of human nature. I was somewhere near the market when I noticed somebody nodding to me familiarly. It was a plump elderly man I did not remember having met before. I viewed his approach with some apprehension but he waddled up to me with a happy smile of recognition on his good-natured stupid face. He came to me and put his arm familiarly round my neck and panted before he could speak. “Of course you remember me,” he began. I really did not, but as I am considerate by nature and thought that to say so might hurt his self esteem, I said, “Of Course I remember you, but you must excuse me for the moment. I am in something of a hurry to keep an engagement.” But the gentleman was not so to be put off. “You funny fellow! Then tell me my name if you remember me.”

I hazarded some guess.

“You funny fellow (a pat on my shoulder, which made me wince). You sly rogue (a nudge with the elbow). No jokes with me. I know you (an ugly leer meant to be a knowing wink). You must tell me my name. Don’t pretend you don’t remember it.”

“I really have forgotten it, Mister. I should be obliged if you would tell me your name. But I must really go now.”

“Oh you cunning rascal! Go on! I know you too well. Go on.” Really his coarse geniality was overwhelming. It was a desperate situation me and I noticed with growing alarm that we were drawing more public attention than I quite liked. As the gentleman was hugging me to his bosom fondling me in the middle of the street, a soda-bottle cart, a jutka with a vociferously profane driver, and other sundry traffic were forced to draw up immediately behind us, and we had achieved a minor traffic jam. I noticed that my unwelcome acquaintance was viewing our popularity with great satisfaction, but this was to be short-lived as the policeman nearby gesticulated frantically and made as if to come to us. I made a desperate effort to shake my friend off. But as he had attached himself to me clingingly (in the ivy manner) I could not quite succeed, but I jerked him off the middle of the road sufficiently to enable the stream of busy traffic to resume its normal flow. If I thought I could escape my friend, I was mistaken. He stood with legs apart, like a very Colossus, and his embrace, if anything became closer and more compelling. There, with the eyes of the bazaar on me, I was laughingly dunned, implored, challenged to tell him his name. It was as though he had forgotten it himself and wanted to rediscover his own identity with my help. I guessed wildly. I began in alphabetical order. I had worked through the letters A, B, C, D, G & H (from Annappiah to Hayavadana, if you are curious). But…..no, no that would not do. He knew all my tricks. It seems–unknown to myself I must confess–I had been from my earliest days a sort of infant prodigy for all kinds of humorous tricks. Never was a wit or a wag in a more dismal predicament, not even the great Harlequin when he went to consult the specialist for a cure for mirthlessness. And his hilarity increased with my distress. He could never be brought to believe that I might really not know his name. He was sure I was kidding him about it.

At last his mirth became uproarious and seemed to go over the entire gamut of his animal ancestry. He twittered like a sparrow, he crowed like a cock; he brayed like a donkey, he grinned like a chimpanzee; he laughed like a hyaena and he guffawed like a–oh! how he did guffaw!–he guffawed like himself. At long last he gasped like a fish, through sheer exhaustion of joy and said, “Well, my dear fellow, what do you say to a spot of lunch to celebrate our reunion? Nothing heavy you know, something very light. It will loosen our tongues and we shall have our little chat. Come along.” I felt too weak to resist, and suffered myself to be led along like a lamb. I shuddered at his humorous euphemism “a little chat”. If his lunch should be as ‘light’ as his chat had been ‘little’, I only hoped he would pay for it because I had only a rupee till my monthly allowance would come in two days later.

He dragged me along to a restaurant and was simply bubbling over with good humour, simply bursting with irrepressible laughter. When we got into the hotel I saw that my persecutor was extremely popular there. He winked at the fat proprietor sitting out at the door and was in no way abashed when that gentleman gave him a stony stare, as if he did not appreciate such familiarity. There seemed to be a lot of merriment among the waiters at his appearance, and he nodded at some lunchers and patted the waiters on their backs, winked at some and even tickled one in the tummy with his potato forefinger. He seemed to have been a regular and beloved customer.

A waiter was asked by my companion for the menu and the boy rattled off the names of all the dishes like a quick firing gun. I made up my mind to take nothing but coffee, in the hope that it might discourage him from taking many dishes. I refused everything but coffee. “You must take some thing. I know what great gluttons you boys are. I won’t take your refusal. Waiter! Let us have two plates of–(something very heavy). And look here, while you are getting them cooked get us two ice-creams. And (to me) why not take some halva? They prepare it very nicely here.” I was adamant in my refusal, for something told me I would have to be the host in spite of myself, but he had signaled away the waiter. He took both halvas, his and mine. I won’t weary you by repeating the names of all the dishes that were ordered. But as Kinglake speaking about the Arabian desert could not avoid repetition of the word ‘sand’, I cannot avoid the repetition of the word ‘ate’ as most expressive of my acquaintance’s pervasive activity. He ate, and he ate, and he ate. He ATE. As I was so foolish as not to eat what he had ordered for me, he ate that also. And between mouthfuls he talked. He talked about the pernicious gluttony of youth and his own abstemiousness and–heaven forgive him, for I cannot–he asked me his name, once, twice and then many times. It seemed to him an incomparable joke. I made a feeble effort at retaliation and I asked him to tell my name for a change. He laughed uproariously and, with out answering, called for a new dish. I never knew before how expensive my name could be to me. I experienced a sinking feeling under the great load of things he ate, and presently fell into a dull apathy of resignation. A sacrificial goat, as it sees others of its kind slaughtered, probably feels that way while waiting for its own turn.

All things must come to an end,–so also did this nightmare gobbling. My friend got up and said, “I have an important engagement to keep and so if you will excuse me–” and he made for the door. Not a thought of paying. One moment he paused at the door, to say “What a rogue you are! You pretended to know me, and the distinction is cheap at the price you have to pay,” and the next he was gone. I believe strongly that he enjoyed his parting shot as much as he had the good things he had eaten at my cost. I could tell that from the wicked glint in his eyes.

Then I had to pay the piper for the tunes he had called. I hadn’t the money with me and so I pretended to make a search in my pockets, made a show of surprise and said to the proprietor who had just come in, “Sorry I have forgotten my purse at home. I will pay you when I come next time. Meanwhile, here is my watch.” I laid my wrist-watch on the table with the sad thought that it would be only after I got my allowance that I could redeem it. As I rose to go, a perverse desire to know my friend’s name seized me I asked the proprietor, “Who was that gentleman who lunched with me? “He looked surprised and then a slow smile appeared on his stolid and countenance. “Why, didn’t you know him before, Sir? Nobody knows his name here. That is his usual trick and he has reduced it to a fine art. He pretends to know a gentleman who seems to him to be guileless and sponges on him pitilessly. He has done that many times. Poor you, how should you know? I might have warned you, but what business was it of mine?” Certainly, it would not have been good as business!

I wonder if what he told me was true. But that explains the sponger’s not telling me my name when I asked him. Yesterday I saw him in the market and he could see me. You would think he would feel abashed–but no, it was I who felt so ashamed of having been ‘had’ that I dashed madly into a neighboring shop to avoid him. It happened to be a News-agent’s stall, and I was forced to buy (for appearance’ sake) one of those magazines rather ironically termed humorous, which never made anybody laugh, and which I did not want.

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