That evening he said to Willie, “I feel we are always taking one step forward and then two steps back, and the government is always there waiting for us to fail. There are some people in the movement who have been in all the rebellions and have spent thirty years doing what we do. They are people who really don’t want anything to happen now. For them revolution and hiding and knocking on villagers’ doors and asking for food and shelter for the night has become a way of life. We have always had our hermits wandering about the forest. It’s in our blood. People applaud us for it, but it’s got us nowhere.”
He was becoming wild, passion overcoming the regard he had for Willie, and Willie was glad when they separated for the night.
Willie thought, “They all want the old ways to go. But the old ways are part of people’s being. If the old ways go people will not know who they are, and these villages, which have their own beauty, will become a jungle.”
They left behind three men of the squad, to talk about the need to plough the lord’s land.
Ramachandra, more philosophical this morning, like a cat that has abruptly forgotten its rage, said, “They won’t do anything.”
A mile out of the village young men began to come out of the forest. They walked in step with the squad. There was no mockery in them.
“Our recruits,” Ramachandra said. “You see. High school boys. As I told you. For them we are a vision of the life they once had. But they didn’t have the money to stay on in the small town they went to for their education. We are for them what the London-returned and America-returned boys were for you. We will let them down, and I feel it is better to let them go at this stage.”
At noon they rested.
Ramachandra said, “I haven’t told you why I joined the movement. The reason is actually very simple. You know about the college boys who befriended me in the town and bought a suit for me. There was a teacher at that college who for some reason was very nice to me. When I got my diploma I thought I should do something in return for him. You know what I thought? Please don’t laugh. I thought I should ask him to dinner. It was something that was always happening in the Mills and Boon books. I asked him whether he would like to have dinner with me. He said yes, and we fixed a date. I didn’t know what to do about that dinner. It tormented me. I had never given anyone dinner. A crazy idea came to me. There was a rich family in the town. They were small industrialists, making pumps and things like that. Dazzling to me. I didn’t know these people, but I took my courage in both hands and went to their big house. I put on my suit, the one that had given me so much joy and pain. You can imagine the cars in the drive, the lights, the big verandah. People were coming and going, and no one noticed me at the beginning. Halfway down the drawing room there was the kind of bar that people in these modern houses have. No one was paying me too much attention, with all the crush, and I felt that I could even sit at the bar and ask the bow-tied servant for a drink. He was the only one I felt I could talk to. I didn’t ask him for a drink. I asked him who the owner of the house was. He pointed him out to me, sitting on an open side verandah with other people. Sitting out in the cool night air. A sturdy rather than plump middle-aged man with thin hair smoothed back. With my heart in my boots, as the saying is, I went to the verandah and said to the great man, in the presence of all the people there, ‘Good evening, sir. I am a student at the college. Professor Coomaraswamy is my teacher, and he has sent me to you with a request. He very much would like to have dinner with you on — I gave the date — if you are free.’ The great man stood up and said, ‘Professor Coomaraswamy is greatly admired in this town, and it would be an honour to have dinner with him.’ I said, ‘Professor Coomaraswamy particularly wants you to host the dinner, sir.’ The Mills and Boon books had given me this language. Without Mills and Boon I couldn’t have done any of it. The great industrialist looked surprised but then said, ‘That would be an even greater honour.’ I said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and almost ran out of the big house. On the day I put on my suit of pain and joy and took a taxi to my professor’s house. He said, ‘Ramachandra, this really gives me great pleasure. But why have you come in a taxi? Are we going far?’ I didn’t say anything, and we drove to the industrialist’s. My professor said, ‘This is a very grand house, Ramachandra.’ I said, ‘For you, sir, I want nothing but the best.’ I led him to the open verandah, where the industrialist and his wife and some other people were sitting, and then again I almost ran out of the house. The next day in the college my professor said, ‘Why did you kidnap me last night and take me to those people, Ramachandra? I didn’t know who they were, and they didn’t know anything about me.’ I said, ‘I am a poor man, sir. I can’t give someone like you dinner, and I wanted only the best for you.’ He said, ‘But, Ramachandra, my background is like yours. My family were just as poor as you.’ I said, ‘I made a mistake, sir.’ But I was full of shame. That was where that suit and Mills and Boon had taken me. I hated myself. I wanted to wipe out everyone who had witnessed my shame. I imagined the laughter of all those people in the verandah. I felt I couldn’t live in the world unless those people were dead. Unless my professor was dead. I have almost forgotten what they looked like, but that shame and anger is still with me.”
I said, “Little things drive people more than we sometimes imagine. I have so many causes of shame. In India, London and Africa. They are fresh after twenty years. I don’t think they will ever die. They will die only with me.”
Ramachandra said, “That is what I feel too.”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON a group of young men came out of the forest as the squad marched by. They had been waiting for the squad perhaps all day; time here was almost without value. And it was possible to tell from their bright faces and eager manner that these young men were potential recruits, young men imprisoned in their village and dreaming of breaking out: dreaming of the town and modern dress and modern amusements, dreaming of a world where time would have more meaning, dreaming perhaps also, the more spirited among them, of upheaval and power. Such groups had been attaching themselves to the squad at various stages of the march; their names and parentage and villages had been noted down. But this group of young men was different from others. These young men had news; their news made them frantic.
They sought out the man with the important gun, recognising him as the commander. Ramachandra and they talked. After a while Ramachandra signalled to the column to halt.
Ramachandra said, “They say there’s an ambush prepared for us higher up.”
Willie said, “Who?”
“It could be anybody. If it’s true. It could be the police. It could be Kandapalli’s supporters. It could be men hired by that big farmer who wants to buy the land from the old feudal. They would regard us as enemies. It could even be villagers who have become tired of having us in their villages and want now to get rid of us. They know we don’t mean business. It is part of the mess we are in here. Everybody feels the old world is changing and nobody can see a clear way ahead. We have thrown away our chance and now there are hundreds of causes. If we had proper military training we would know how to deal with an ambush. But we didn’t want to use guns. We just did the boy-scout and cadet stuff. Shouldering arms and presenting arms and standing at ease. That is all right if you are the only one with a gun. But now there is someone else with a gun, and I don’t know what to do. All I feel is that I should go forward and try to kill him. I can’t ask you to follow me since I don’t know what to do. If there is an ambush and something happens to me, you should go back on your tracks. Now make yourselves scarce.”