Distorted Mirror Read online

  R.K. Laxman

  THE DISTORTED MIRROR

  Stories, Travelogues, Sketches

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  About the Author

  SHORT STORIES

  An Accident

  The Day the Viceroy Came

  A Touch of Fever

  The Letter

  The Gold Frame

  TRAVELOGUES

  Idle Hours in the USA

  Darjeeling

  Holiday in the Islands

  Australia and I

  Mauritius

  Impressions of Kathmandu

  SKETCHES

  Reminiscences on the 1942 Struggle

  The Ugly Politician

  ‘How I Did It!’

  Barefoot in the Palace

  As Life Unfolds ...

  Silent Days

  The Bespectacled Goat

  The Distorted Mirror

  Copyright Page

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE DISTORTED MIRROR

  Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman was born and educated in Mysore. Soon after he graduated from the University of Mysore, he began cartooning for the Free Press Journal, a newspaper in Bombay. Six months later he joined the Times of India as staff cartoonist, and has been with the newspaper for over fifty years. He has written and published numerous short stories, essays and travel articles, some of which are collected here. He has also written three works of fiction, The Hotel Riviera, The Messenger and Servants of India, all published by Penguin Books. Penguin has also published several collections of Laxman’s cartoons in the series The Best of Laxman and Laugh with Laxman. The Tunnel of Time,Laxman’s autobiography, is available from Penguin as well.

  R.K. Laxman was awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. The University of Marathwada conferred an honorary Doctor of Literature degree on him. He has won many awards for his cartoons, including Asia’s top journalism award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, in 1984.

  R.K. Laxman lives in Mumbai.

  SHORT STORIES

  AN ACCIDENT

  KAILAS CHECKED the mileage and was satisfied with the distance he had put between Gunny Daga and himself. He’d been driving almost ceaselessly from the moment he had left him sprawled on the sofa three nights ago.

  The road wound through a thickly wooded part of the country which, as he raced along the tall trees, gradually gave way to shrubs and fields. Now lone farmsteads stood haplessly in the parched vastness of unyielding land.

  Kailas marvelled at the country and felt grateful that it offered him such a protective expanse and variety in which he could render himself inconspicuous.

  He saw a petrol pump and stopped. There were lorries laden with goods standing around, billowing diesel smoke and making belligerent noises. While his car was being attended to, Kailas went across the street to a little shop and bought a newspaper. Though it was a day old, he scanned its columns anxiously.

  Then, returning to his car, he sat down and repeated the performance—this time more carefully, dropping each page he finished into the back seat. He was relieved that there was no news about his escape.

  When he got set to resume his journey, he was happy to see the road stretch invitingly before him. Deciding to take advantage of the bright day to get as far away as he could before sundown, he took off like a jet on a runway.

  The car wheels spun, whistling on the melting-hot tar surface, the wind hit the glass shield with the force of a gale, and wailed like a thousand unseen ghosts. The horizon quivered and danced in the heat and mirages of puddles receded, disappeared and reappeared as Kailas madly sped towards them, spurred on by the feel of brute power under his grip. The ground on either side became more and more blurred as it hurtled past him with the gathering speed of the car.

  Suddenly he heard sounds of a thunderous flapping all around. Before he could react, something blocked the view of the road in front. His reflexes went into action and he slammed down the brakes. The car swung crazily and skidded, its steel frame shuddering as though its bolts would fly off.

  When it ground to a halt, Kailas sat stunned, gripping the steering so hard it could have cracked his bones. All his nerves had gathered up into a concentrated tight knot. He had no idea what devilish force had dealt the blow and where.

  Kailas then realized that he was looking at a sheet of the newspaper he had bought, spread out neatly on the steering-wheel, as if he had propped it up there to read!

  There was another sheet lying limply on the space above the dashboard, partly covering the windshield and one more next to him on the seat. He turned and noticed in the rear seat a chaos of newspaper pages.

  The angry hooting of a passing truck jerked Kailas back to reality. His car was standing at an odd angle, blocking the way.

  After moving it out, he sat and began to reflect in horrified fascination on his fate if he had dashed against the fat tamarind tree nearby! He visualized his car in a shambles and himself in it reduced to a bloody pulp. The gory image sent a cold shiver down his back. No one would have believed that his death was caused by half a dozen newspaper sheets flying about madly and that one of them wrapping itself round his face had sent him crashing against the tree at more than a hundred kilometres an hour!

  After a while Kailas resumed the journey and made sure that every scrap of paper was thrown out of the car. But he never felt at ease again as he drove on: imaginary noises of rustling papers and odd sounds harassed him and hindered his progress.

  The sun had gone down, setting the western sky aflame and Kailas had still not passed a town where he felt he could rest for the night. Late at night, at last he came by a place so tiny that its sole excuse for existence seemed to be a noisy cinema house with bright-coloured bulbs and garish posters. Part of the town was still awake, for the show had not ended.

  He parked the car in front of Nehru Lodge, went in and asked for a room.

  ‘Of course, sir. I will give the one on the other side. You will not be disturbed by the racket created by the cinema house.’

  Kailas was pleased with the friendly proprietor and the cheerful atmosphere of the place.

  The room was small. An iron cot and chair filled it entirely. There was a window overlooking the darkness outside and the walls were unevenly plastered. A snuff manufacturer’s calendar hung on the wall as if to add elegance to the room, with a picture of a female nude standing knee deep in a brook. But provocative parts of her body had been discreetly airbrushed to a superb vagueness, perhaps evoking a feeling of disappointment in the eager viewer. However, some previous occupant had tried his hand at restoring the picture with a ballpoint pen.

  Kailas went down the passage to the common bathroom and poured buckets of cold water over his head, soaped and scrubbed himself till his skin tingled with freshness. Returning to his room, he changed, took out a bottle of whisky and sat down to relax.

  For the first time in many months, Kailas felt a sense of security and peace. With the money he had, he could enjoy this tranquillity for a long time. Chances of Daga tracing him to Nehru Lodge seemed remote. His eyes fell on the nude in the calendar and curiously his thoughts turned to Dorine, the typist who had worked for Daga.

  She had disappeared without a trace just a few days before Kailas had deserted Daga.

  ‘That bitch has no loyalty. It is not safe to have her around,’ Daga had complained often. He had felt the same about Kannan who slaved for him in all sorts of ways. He was found dead on a railway track one day. Daga had not even pretended to be shocked when the news was brought to him.

  Kailas, sitting in a poky room in an obscure hotel, thanked his stars that he got away before Daga began to feel that he was a security risk too.

  The next morning a cl
attering noise outside the window woke him. His watch showed 6 a.m. He felt oppressed at the thought of the day that seemed to stretch like a desert without an object in view.

  The noise outside went on rhythmically. Kailas edged upto the window and saw a timber yard: trucks were unloading the logs.

  Under a small corrugated shed, a man was sitting at a ‘table’ which was actually the stump of a log. A smaller version of it served as his chair.

  It struck Kailas that the set would look smart at the poolside of the fancy mansions that Daga built as a contractor. He had very rich customers who could afford his prices and paid him in black. Kailas himself was greatly influenced by such a sentiment and this had resulted in the accumulation of unmanageable quantities of cash in his flat.

  Daga used to come into his room and toss bundles of notes on the table, calling it his ‘share’ of the ‘deal’. Although it was tremendously exciting in the beginning, excessive cash soon became a source of constant anxiety for them. Kailas saw no intelligent way of disposing it, except on alcohol, women and gambling.

  Soon this kind of life sucked him deeper into the business of the underworld. He realized that, unknown to himself, he had moved on quietly from being a building contractor’s partner to a culpable crook. Kailas was appalled to think that he had indeed become a mean accomplice to several shady activities including murder.

  Daga’s consuming hunger for money and the mindless manner in which he blew it up with all the vulgarity of a Roman orgy began to sicken Kailas. He wanted to get away from it all but fear of attracting Daga’s fatal suspicion kept him performing like a circus dog in his troupe. There was nothing like a friendly parting from Daga. He had a knack of getting rid of inconvenient people and he considered it a treacherous act if anyone even thought of leaving him.

  Tension and suspense mounted each day till it became unbearable. Kailas had worked himself to such a state that if Daga happened to turn and look at him full in the face, even casually, he panicked and went cold all over.

  One day, in a spirit of drunken bravado, lolling in bed with Dorine, he had declared his plans to quit and had invited her to elope with him. A few days later, she disappeared without trace. It was then Kailas realized that the time had come for him to leave.

  After one of the Roman banquets one night, when Daga lay sprawled on a sofa in a drunken stupor, Kailas saw his chance, packed his bag and left.

  That was four days ago and Daga had no way of knowing that Kailas was in Nehru Lodge with nearly the entire subcontinent between them.

  The trucks had unloaded and left, one by one. Kailas washed, changed and went down for breakfast.

  At the table opposite him, a man sat writing in a bulky weather-beaten leather diary. He looked up and gave a friendly smile: small-town traits, reflected Kailas.

  ‘You are occupying the upstairs room overlooking the timber yard, aren’t you? My name is Naidu,’ the man said.

  Kailas was taken aback. ‘How did you guess I was in that room, Mr Naidu?’ he asked, really surprised.

  ‘Not Mister Naidu. Just Naidu. I saw you at the window, watching the unloading,’ Naidu grinned.

  He was big and dark with curly silvery hair and moustache.

  ‘People from big towns don’t observe much,’ he remarked, sounding pleasantly critical.

  ‘I am not from any big town,’ Kailas bluffed hurriedly.

  ‘Never mind. Any town other than this is big. You won’t find one smaller than this in the whole country. Your name, sir?’

  Kailas was prepared for the question. ‘Hem Kumar. Call me Kumar, please.’

  They sat and chatted for a long time. Kailas learnt that Naidu was a timber merchant and that the government had leased out to him a nearby forest from where he got the logs.

  Three weeks went by. One day, at the breakfast table, Naidu said to him, ‘I want someone to mind the work at the other end, at the Forest Lodge. Someone reliable and trustworthy, Kumar.’

  Then the conversation proceeded on semi-business lines and, at the end of it, Kailas accepted the offer.

  The Forest Lodge was tucked away inside a jungle, some 50 kilometres away, off the trunk road. An hour’s drive on an undulating dirt-track inside the jungle brought Kailas and Naidu to the lodge.

  ‘During the British days, this used to be a hunting lodge, they say,’ Naidu said.

  It was a picturesque log house on wooden stilts with red tiles and large glass windows. Kailas surveyed it closely.

  A man appeared from somewhere and carried the luggage in. ‘He will cook, wash, sweep, dust . . . This is the sitting room, that is the bedroom . . . bathroom . . .’ Naidu went on talking. ‘Milk, vegetables come from a village nearby. No problem . . .’

  Kailas liked his work: he spent the whole day in the open in the shade of the trees. His job was to get the cut logs numbered with white paint, enter the number in a book and send them on to Naidu through a driver at the end of the day. He also had to guard against theft and illegal transactions.

  By sundown, all the lorries would be gone, leaving him alone with the silent jungle. He would go in, have a bath, fix a drink and sit and read—by the light of a kerosene lamp—the papers and magazines that Naidu regularly sent. When there was no work, he would sometimes pay a visit to Nehru Lodge, meet his old friends and shop around to replenish his stock of soap, toothpaste and liquor.

  Kailas found it hard to believe that this idyllic life of his was for real and not some tricky dream. The forest became his constant companion and enchanted, he would observe its varying moods from dawn to the brooding starlit hours of the night. Each season held a different thrill for him, but he liked the fury of the monsoon best when the roaring tropical storm lashed and held the jungle in its grip and shook it to the roots.

  As time passed, the fear of Gunny Daga softly faded and settled at the back of his mind as a mere comical episode. Even some of Daga’s crooked ways began to strike him as funny and at the thought of them Kailas used to chuckle sometimes. Daga and all that he stood for felt like someone else’s experience.

  One evening, when the last truck had left, groaning under the weight of the logs, Kailas saw a black car at the far end of the rugged track leading out of the forest. It was bobbing up and down, glorifying the sunset with the brilliance of the golden dust it kicked up.

  Nobody had ever visited him at that hour: even at that distance, he sensed something ominous about the vehicle nosing its way towards him.

  He dashed into the cottage quickly. In an instant, he had slipped back in time into the grip of tormenting fear. His heart pounded vigorously, as if it had a pair of hands. Sweating and gasping, he stood behind the door. He heard the car come to a stop, the engine die, the door bang.

  Then the man shouted: ‘Hey Kailas, come and say hello to your guest!’

  The guttural voice conveyed that it belonged to a drunk man.

  Kailas came out and went through a series of predetermined acts: he pretended to disbelieve his eyes at first. Surprise and joy followed on recognizing who the stranger was and then came the ecstatic cry: ‘Daga! Oh Daga!’

  With arms spread out in a melodramatic gesture of welcome, he moved towards him.

  ‘Shut up and get back into the house,’ Daga shouted, dodging Kailas’s embrace.

  Kailas at once sprinted back into the sitting room, dragged the chairs around, cleared the table of all the accumulated papers, lit the lamps and was still fussing about and cackling like an old aunt when Daga thundered: ‘Enough, you idiot! Sit down!’

  ‘No, not before I fix you a drink,’ Kailas said coyly.

  Daga finished the drink at one draught. ‘You have done yourself very well for a traitor,’ he said, looking around with cynical appreciation.

  ‘How is the drink—OK?’ Kailas asked, refilling his glass and ignoring the remark.

  ‘How much money have you made? I want the truth. I am not making a social call, you know. I am here on business.’

  ‘Money? No money
in this business, Daga. Only peace of mind,’ Kailas replied, smiling tranquilly.

  By now it was totally dark outside. The lamp in the room was attracting a stream of insects of all colours, sizes and shapes. Kailas got up and closed the wire-mesh windows and doors, muttering all the while about the difficult life he was leading, as if it was a punishment.

  He knew Daga was not listening. Daga was staring fixedly at Kailas. He looked like a double-barrelled gun with a pair of eyes, Kailas thought.

  ‘Where have you tucked away your lovey-dovey Dorine? Under your cot?’ he gestured coarsely and roared with laughter.

  Kailas’s hand shook as he poured the drinks.

  ‘You cowardly bastard. Never mind about the bitch. Tell me what happened to all the money. Donated it to an orphanage?’

  ‘I did not have any money . . .’ Kailas began, hopelessly trying an explanation.

  ‘Liar!’ Daga shouted. He pounded the table so hard the oil lamp nearly toppled over and both of them shot out their hands to save their glasses.

  Daga was steadily losing control over himself. He demanded one drink after another in rapid succession. He shouted obscenities and abuses at the top of his voice. ‘You son of a bitch. You give me my share. Fifty thousand cash—now! You think I did not know that you disposed of that consignment . . .’

  ‘Fifty thousand!’ Kailas gasped. ‘Where am I to go . . .?’

  ‘Go and steal it, if your life is that precious. But get it. If you run again, I will kill you, no matter which gutter you hide in. Tomorrow this time. Fifty thousand.’

  Kailas sat paralysed. Daga was a killer and the hunting lodge was ideally suited for his operation. He could kill and walk away without a soul knowing it.

  ‘Give me some more time,’ Kailas mumbled to fill a menacing silence.

  ‘No. You wish to live or die—that is up to you to decide. I have no time to waste, I have a business deal to finish tonight. The party is waiting. I have a hundred bloody kilometres to go.’