The teachers were told that the school’s finances were in a bad way. They were implored to open their hearts and give donations to the school so that they could collect their salary. In his half year of work, Basharat had got exactly sixty rupees, which had been entered in the school’s accounting books as a no-interest loan. Now he was reluctant to ask for his salary because he didn’t want his loan to grow. But while his back salary grew, Moli Mujjan’s tone of voice grew more silken and his conversations, more circumlocutious. One day, Basharat haltingly asked about the money, and Moli Mujjan said, ‘Son, think of me like your dad. I can’t figure out what you’d do with so much money in a little hayseed town like this. You’re a bachelor. Having so much cash lying around while you live alone is risky business. At night I’m scared for you. Sultana Daku is wreaking havoc around here.’
Anyway, his demand had one result and that was that every day Moli Mujjan started sending over a pot of watery yogurt.
The County Treasurer never paid him, but from time to time he gave him a basket of spinach or chickpeas, or a piece of deer meat, or sometimes a big jar of rasawal pudding or some lumps of fresh jaggery. On Eid, he gave Basharat a pot of Sandela laddoos, and on Bakrid, the head of a goat buck in heat. At the end of the summer, he gave him four watermelons in a worn-down gunnysack, and, as Basharat was taking them home, they kept spilling out upon his each and every step. When he tried to catch one, the others rolled away. By the time he had got halfway there, they had all split open, and so he left the gunnysack next to a roadside well and went home. A bull freed onto the open road by Pundit Jugal Kishore in the memory of his father started licking the watermelon juice with great relish until a sexy young cow came by and turned his attention from something good to something better.
During the January rains, when Basharat’s thatched roof started to leak, the County Treasurer arranged for two bullock carts of small bundles of thatching straw, reed mats for lining the ceiling, and he conscripted four thatchers as well — and all, free of charge. The entire region’s thatched roofs had gone black from the sun, fire-smoke, and rain. Only Basharat’s thatch was golden. After it rained, the sun’s rays seemed to be showering gold coins on top of it. Also, the County Treasurer sent a gunnysack of finely carded cotton for a blanket, and a pillow stuffed with down on whose cover Nazo had embroidered a rose. (Basharat slept on this pillow upside down — facedown, with his nose and lips on top of the flower.) The County Treasurer had impounded a rebellious farmer’s milch goat in the Kanji House for two weeks under the pretext that it was a stray. When the price of feeding it surpassed its actual price, Basharat was handed its leash and told it was his. But he didn’t accept for two reasons. One, he said that he had drunk so much watery yogurt and eaten so much widow’s curry5 that his eyes had grown yellow and his poetry, weak. He couldn’t have any more liquidy food. Two, while he could produce poetry and fulfil his teaching duties without bread or money, a goat wouldn’t be able to produce milk in that condition, and it would be hard pressed to produce even goat droppings.
The King of Flab
When Basharat complained that he had to walk three miles in the bright sun to reach school, the County Treasurer ordered that he be given a mule for transport. He had bought a stubborn mule at an army auction. Now, in its old age, it was good only for humiliating headstrong Jats, Chamar leather-workers who refused to work for free, and farmers who didn’t give free milk and cuts of their harvests: they would have their faces smeared with soot, and then they would be planted on the mule’s back to parade through town. Trailing after them would be a rabble of drums and cymbals so that the mule would buck and startle. Once, a hated grass-cutter — who hemmed and hawed about handing over his weekly supply of grass — fell from it, broke his back, and was left completely paralysed. Basharat thought it was more dignified and safer to walk. It would have been a real pain in the ass to walk the three miles if Lord Wellesley hadn’t been there to accompany him. He would talk to the dog on the way to and from school. And he would reply on the dog’s behalf. But as soon as he thought of Nazo, his fatigue and irritation disappeared. His stride automatically grew longer.
He continued teaching the County Treasurer’s naughty sons up till the incident that I’ll recount later. He was known as Mr Teacher throughout town. And, in this role, he was welcomed everywhere. When people came to the County Treasurer’s hoping for his help, they would even pet Lord Wellesley. From eating the milk and jelabis that the County Treasurer had received as a bribe, the dog had become so fat and lazy that now he only wagged his tail. He had grown scared to bark. His fur had become as shiny as the coats of racehorses. Throughout town, he was now called the King of Flab. But those jealous of Basharat called him the County Treasurer’s Tipu! In the winter, Nazo styled a coat for Lord Wellesley from an old waistcoat of hers, and so people stroked the dog’s new coat and treated him very well. Moli Mujjan had the bad habit of barging into people’s classrooms while they were teaching to see if they were teaching well or not, but he never went into Basharat’s classroom because Lord Wellesley was always standing watch outside.
As Basharat grew more experienced, he was asked to be the County Treasurer’s helper on hunting trips, and so Lord Wellesley learned how to swim out and retrieve wounded ducks from lakes. The County Treasurer had asked on several occasions to be given the dog. Each time, Basharat motioned to himself and the dog, ‘This dog of yours, along with my dog, is your slave. Why would you want to bother with walking him and dealing with his pee and poop?’ When the County Treasurer had a special collar ordered from Lucknow and placed around the dog’s neck, the dog started to be treated as though he were among the king’s elect, and Basharat started to walk around town with an air of pride. But there was no doubt that the dog was a good breed because his grandfather, Tipu the Elder, had been a pointer raised by a judge on the Allahabad High Court. When he had left for England, he had given his dog to his reader. Lord Wellesley was his offspring, but in Dhiraj Ganj he was suffering humiliation and disgrace in each and every alley.
Moli Mujjan hated Lord Wellesley. He said, ‘First of all, he’s a dog. Even if he was Ashab-e-Kahaf’s dog, he’d still be a dog. Also, he’s been trained to bite only respectable people!’ There’s no doubt that he seemed much more dear when he was barking at Moli Mujjan. He had been trained so well that on Basharat’s command he would bring his ruler from the staff room. Moli Mujjan said that once he had seen the filthy beast carrying the attendance register in his mouth! (But he probably didn’t say anything at the time because he was scared of the County Treasurer, rabies too. A Chinese sage once said that before you throw anything at a dog, find out who its owner is.)
With respect to manners and habits, Lord Wellesley was entirely unlike other dogs. When a stranger came to the house, he didn’t bark at all. But when this person got up to leave, the dog wouldn’t let him go. He would grab the man’s leg in his vice-like jaws and not let go.
The Teachers Have Eaten Up the Orphanage!
Gradually Moli Mujjan stopped offering even no-interest loans. He started avoiding people. One day, covered in chalk, carrying his eraser, and with his attendance register underneath his arm, Basharat was leaving his classroom when Moli Mujjan pulled him by the sleeve into his office and started in on him. Probably it was an instance of ‘the best defense is a good offense.’ He said, ‘Basharat, son, it’s been a while since you’ve not got your salary, and yet you don’t seem bothered. The school has fallen into dire straits. Think of something. The teachers are paid out of the orphanage’s charity fund. The teachers have eaten up the orphanage! I’m scared that you all will suffer the wrath of God.’ This lit a fire under Basharat. He said, ‘It’s almost been eight months since I started here. I’ve got all of sixty or seventy rupees. I’ve had to ask for a money order twice from home. After all this, if there’s still some risk of incurring God’s wrath, then you can have this job back.’ And right then and there he handed over his supplies. I mean, he gave Moli Mujjan the eraser and the attendance register.