The Cat and Shakespeare by Raja Rao Read Free Book Online

persons in Trivandrum fell ill with this or that disease. Our Revenue Board Third Member, Kunni Kutta Nair, fell with a thud into his courtyard, and blood came out of his nose. It was diagnosed as one thing, and he died of another. People also died of cholera. Some had, like me, strange boils. It started one morning as I began to scratch my feet. The red of my scratch began to swell up. It became round and then yellow. With difficulty I took my bath and limped to the office. From Puttenchantai, as you know, to the Secretariat is just about twelve minutes’ walk. It took me twenty-five but the bubo grew and grew. When my boss suddenly came in around eleven-thirty, asking for some file, I jumped up, and the bubo burst under my feet. The fluid just spilled over the floor. I gave my boss the file and went into the bathroom (on the way I asked Krishna, the peon, to call the sweeper woman and have the floor cleaned). Once in the bathroom, I found another red spot rising on my thigh. This time there was no question. It almost grew big under my eyes. It was like a guava in a few minutes. But because it gave me no pain, I just went back to my table. In a few hours my whole body except my face had nothing but boils. They rose, grew red and then yellow, añd burst like country eggs. I went to the chemists’ and they gave me an ointment and bandages. I walked home with four bandages. I could not touch anything except coffee, I had such disgust. What’s the use of having a wife if she cannot take care of one—for when boils come, do they say, Dear Sir, I am coming, may I come, like a mother-in-law? No, they come just like that, and occupy your house. They’re of British make, and like everything British, it works without your knowing. Govindan Nair has a simple definition: ‘Britain has no secret service—Britain is secret service. Hitler has bombs; the British have boils. But of the two, which one works, dear sir, great sir? Of course the boils.’
    Yes, the British boils worked. Some even said the infection was carried back by soldiers from Benghazi. (Where there’s no water in the air, the skin swells, avid for any available humidity, is the immediate explanation of Govindan Nair. He has an explanation, as you see, for everything. And every occasion is Serious, intelligible, and final). That night, to come back to my British boils, I was up and hunting my boils as one hunts lice in a girl’s hair. I must tell you frankly: I liked it all—just as the girls like lice being killed, there’s an acute sense of pleasure when the two nails rub against each other, and the
chit
sound emerges. The louse is well and happily dead. As a child I also liked the sound of lice being killed in my hair. It made you feel life was worth something. So that when the British boils came, I just lay down and counted all of them towards the early morning. There were some forty-four—small and big, red, pink, and white. When they burst I took away the pus, carefully folded it all up in cotton wool, and put it in a corner. When I woke towards morning ants and lizards were both at it. They were having a feast.
    I could hardly walk now. When I sat up (for this happened constantly with me, whenever I needed him but never asked for him, there would be Govindan Nair), there he was jumping over the wall. His son Modhu had a cough, and this had kept Govindan Nair awake the whole night; so, as he could not go to sleep, he came for a chat. ‘My son will bring my coffee here. Meanwhile let’s bark some nonsense.’ That’s how he always talks.
    ‘Ah,’ I said, and showed him the British boils. He looked at the lizards and their feed and said,
‘Chee-chee,
get away,’ as if they were dogs. For him the whole world was one living organism. Everybody—every thing—understood speech. For him every thing was in masculine gender. He had no verbs in his tongue.
    So the British boils came in for close scrutiny. He knew immediately what it was. He knew every thing