THE VILLAGE AUTOCRAT
(A
Story)
By Marcella Hardy, B.A.
(Hons.) Oxon.
IT
was easy for him to put on airs in the village when his Family still owned a
house and a plot of land. Being a Brahmin, he was entitled to some respect and
consideration–which he never failed to exact on those all too few occasions on
which he was placed at an advantage over some lesser being.
Imperceptibly,
however, he had come to be under obligations to an increasing number of such
lesser beings; and, although he had still blustered and shouted in the old way,
nobody took him seriously. The milk-wife–for he no longer owned a cow–and the
small farmer who supplied rice and other grains–for he no longer cultivated the
plot of land–and the gardener had all become annoyingly insistent about being
paid; they waited with a humble folk’s patience until he had done with his
angry shouting and cursing, only to remind him that money was none the less due
and that supplies might be stopped. Still, it had been easy to put on airs, for
these were as a second nature to him, and there were, moreover, still a few
villagers who remembered the spacious days of the Family and were moved by
traditional awe as well as human pity, and would send round gifts now and again
to keep things going. Now and then, too, there were some folk in the
neighbourhood who still required the services of a Brahmin priest at certain
ceremonies, and on those occasions he could count on useful gifts either in
small sums of money or in food and cloth. He had come to respond to such calls
out of necessity, because only certain sections of his caste were supposed to
officiate for lesser folk, but he seldom confessed to having attended the
ceremonies.
Times,
however, had changed since his childhood. Well could he now remember with haughtiness
how, in his grandfather’s time–why, even in his father’s time–the Family could
order everybody about and receive presents as well as respect for their pains.
But then, in those days, the Family was also known for its hospitality to
indigents, its help to the sick of the village, its learning even, and its
defence of the farmers’ rights against venial officials. The menfolk of the
Family were wise in field lore and their extensive fields were a model for the
neighbourhood, whilst the womenfolk knew all the simple remedies that one might
need in a simple life, and compounded the medicinal teas and potions, the
lotions and poultices at home for anybody who might need them at a moment’s
notice. But times had changed indeed, and the old generation had given place to
his own–his brothers and himself also now well on in years–that had frittered
away the Family property along with the Family status and learning. There was
no status nor even charity left: nothing remained of the Brahmin of the old
days save the plot of land and the house that was now tumbling down–and the
habit of ordering everybody about.
Yet,
he had been brought up in very much the same way as had his fore-fathers; there
did not seem to be any reason for this sudden deterioration in the quality of
the Family. It was rather; as with an ancient tree that looks sound and
flourishing but whose core is secretly worn out: one day the branches break and
the tree falls, revealing the decay inside and leaving little save a few
shiftless shoots to sprout from the rim of bark still left living.
He
had married early, of course, but had had to wait for five daughters to be born
before he and his wife were blessed with a son. All had seemed bright again
with the birth of this son; but then his wife soon died, leaving him the burden
of marrying off the daughters and bringing up the boy, whilst the running of
the house fell back on his aged and infirm mother. He had no dowry to offer
with his daughters, except the good name of his fore-fathers; yet he had not
done too badly, considering his straitened circumstances. A promising doctor in
government service had married the eldest and then, when she died in childbed,
the second daughter, both without even asking for a dowry, just because he
wanted a mother for his children by a first wife. By some strange chance, the
third daughter had been chosen for his son by a Religious Head from the north
country who wanted stout country blood of the same caste for his family. All
this had made blustering easier still in the village, and had given occasion
for important journeys and long stays away from home, relieving him of the ever
increasing humiliation of village obligations.
He
could not, however, altogether abandon his village because there were still two
daughters on his hands, and his beloved son was still at school. There were
times, moreover, when, for all the respect due to his position as
father-in-law, he was made to understand that his visits might well come to an
end, at least for a while. Arduous search and long negotiations had finally
brought him the good fortune of marrying off the fourth daughter. This was by
no means such a good match, for the prospective son-in-law though of good
family was also in reduced circumstances. But the youth had good prospects and
this family, moreover, lived in a town where its name had once been respected,
and the match had the added advantage of requiring neither dowry nor marriage
expenses. In fact, it did seem a particularly promising provision for his own
old age, as he would be able to exact a place in the town home whenever he
wanted a change from the village, debts and indigence forgotten. The thought of
living at last in a town with the glamour that this connoted in the village,
sustained the old gentleman through the more frequently occurring
unpleasantnesses of his penury and the thinly veiled contempt of the villagers’
attitude towards him.
His
son, too, would soon be old enough to leave school and earn his living. It
would be a job in town for him, the dream of impoverished village gentry; a
government desk job, if possible, that meant safety for life even though it
also meant perpetual obscurity in a crowd of other clerks. The plans were
easily made: the youngest daughter would live with the doctor’s wife in surroundings
that would impress probable suitors favourably, and she would also remain at
that suitable age of twelve as long as possible–that would present no moral
difficulty provided he achieved his duty in finally marrying her off. With his
son in town, he himself would live with his son-in-law, in town also, and thus
give substance to the boast he had so often used as a weapon against
recalcitrant villagers.
His
son left school with good marks and, soon after, his old mother passed away,
patient and competent to the end. His youngest daughter went to live with the
doctor’s wife and nothing now remained to tie him to the
village. The plans were going well. Dividing his time between the homes of his
married daughters, he lived pleasantly for some time; pleasantly,
except for the fact that no work seemed to come to his son. Still, he hoped,
the right thing would be sure to come along after all, was his son not a
Brahmin, and had not Brahmins occupied most of the desk jobs?
But
time, alas! also took its toll from among his own generation: the Religious
Head died and the distinguished household would no longer welcome the village
autocrat. Then the doctor died, leaving children as well as the young widow and
the still unmarried sister-in-law. At first, however, this appeared as though
arranged by benign providence as an opportunity for rallying the family in one
place, and recreating the unity it had lost. The doctor, however, left very
little money and a very small pension; the town son-in-law had not made anything
of his prospects and lived, like his wife’s father, in a mirage of non-existent
status. The blow really came when, just because he was a Brahmin, his son
discovered that there was no work for him in a government office, nor anywhere
else, it appeared, and for the same reason. Finally, the boy had to take an
obscure and precarious post, just so as to earn something at all. In the town
house, there was something lacking, it was sadly unlike the proud boasts of the
ageing village autocrat to his humbler neighbours.
It
took him some time to face this reality and to recognize it for what it was; it
took him some time to confess to himself that he was not the head of this
family, as he had planned to be, but was condescendingly tolerated just as one
more in the family numbers. It took him some time to accept the fact that he
was tolerated because he was useful for sending out shopping and to face
irritated creditor storekeepers; he was also useful for looking after the house
when his daughters wanted to go out, whereas he had once been the nucleus of
all such outings. He was useful for tending the baby when the younger people
wanted to rest, and for taking the elder boy to and from school. Gradually his
arrogance grew dim–he did not even notice this change–and his old habit of
shouting and ordering about left him of their own accord, like the resilience
out of a deflating tyre. Presently, he also left the place of honour in the
gatherings where he had been wont to express his weighty opinions, and retired
to his bench on the verandah to prepare his own betel and nut–all that was left
of his old prerogatives–lost in a sea of vague thoughts, of unavowed
disillusionment or of dreams that he still imagined might come true.
While
his daughters slept in the afternoons, he would have his own short nap, then
turn to odd housework: sorting the vegetables, cleaning the rice or the dal,
or sewing leaves into dishes for the evening meal. Gradually he ceased
being heard shouting for silence or administering slaps to the children, as in
the early days of his stay. He even came to accept the place of stop-gap when
the family priest could not conduct the customary rites to the ancestors every
new moon–he, who had once found it in him to contest the priest’s ritual in
heated argument and to remind the assembly of his exploits in the establishment
of the late Religious Head.
Well,
it could not matter much now, for he would never again go back to the village:
he had lost the tumbled house to his brothers and the plot of land was no longer
his. He, who had carried with such zeal all the latest news from home to home,
now vaguely hoped that the village would not come to know how different was his
present life in town from what he had described it. He felt that life had been
inconsiderate to his privileged birth, and a wave of impotent protest would now
and again sweep over him as he slid the veins out of the betel leaves or shaved
the nut to the prescribed thinness. But what could he do, he had nowhere else
to go; and, he still had a son who would, he trusted, perform the rites
correctly when the time came for him to join his ancestors, so he must stay on.
What could he do?
Uncomprehendingly,
he felt that life had been inconsiderate to his privileged birth, for he could
find no fault in himself; vaguely, he blamed the misdeed of some former self in
a previous birth for his present state–perhaps this life would atone for the
misdeed, and he might be reborn, some day, to the status he felt he deserved.
But now, what could he do; why was it like this...