A LEAR OF THE TROPICS
By RANJEE G. SHAHANI STROKING his chin with a puzzled air, the man looked at the four roads leading from the square. He was a small fellow, with grey hair and a face prematurely old. Suffering was clearly marked on his features, but his expression was patient and resigned. On his head was a faded yellow velvet cap, and a long threadbare coat hung loosely about his wasted limbs.
In spite of the glare of the summer afternoon and the hot blast like the breath of a gigantic furnace, he stood there undecidedly. Should he call on his mother-in-law or his sister-in-law—or his cousin the professor, who was taking his vacation near by? It was hard to decide. He would take a few steps first in one direction, then in another, always returning to the same spot.
For the first time in many years the heat seemed to try his strength; and he wondered what was happening to him. Could it be that he was getting old?
A sudden giddiness came upon him, and he sat down on a door-step to rest a while. His mind went back to the time in his boyhood—so many years ago—when some- thing of the same kind had happened to him. He had been carried helpless to his mother-in-law's house. They had called it sunstroke. He had been carefully tended until he was well enough to go about again. At that time the world was very good to him. How tenderly his wife had cared for him during his helplessness! And how kind his mother-in-law had been!
The memory of that illness was the one bright spot in his life. Afterwards there had been great changes. His father had died, leaving him all his property, so that he was fairly well-to-do. But to the wife it had meant an opportunity for extravagance and much gadding about. She had induced him to marry off her sisters with good dowries. And every year they had travelled to places of pilgrimage, which had a great attraction for his mother- in-law. He submitted willingly, for he worshipped his wife. To see her happy was all that mattered to him.
By degrees his money dwindled away; and at last there came a day when he was obliged to sell his ancestral home. But even then he did not murmur: to have his wife with him was all that he sought.
Then some years later came his little son, whose birth cost the mother her life. He had hardly believed it. And when at last he realised his loss, his only wish was to re- join her as speedily as possible. But death would not come. He went on living. May be it was his boy and hers who reconciled him to life.
At this stage the mother-in-law's influence had made it- self felt. She told him that he was not fit to take charge of the child. " You are not even able," she said, " to take care of your own money. If you had looked after things pro- perly he might be rich. You go away and find something to do.... " Meanwhile, she took entire charge of the little one, but allowed his father to visit him.
But he could see that he was an unwelcome guest. His mother-in-law was accustomed to treat him as a person of no importance, and his sisters-in-law, whom he had loaded with jewels in his time of prosperity, would giggle at his entrance. But of these things he took little heed. It was sheer joy to him to see his child and to be in the room where his wife had lived. The very atmosphere seemed to breathe of her, and he would sit there lost in day-dreams in silent communion with her beloved spirit. For hours he remained thus, silent and still, until his mother-in-law, goaded beyond endurance by this supineness, would despatch him on some errand. Without resentment he would passively obey and would do as he was bid, not only for his family but for the neighbours as well, for they also came to regard him as useless for any other purpose. Civil to his face, they would jeer at him directly his back was turned. People knew him in the streets, but he was generally looked upon as a poor half- witted person. He endured it all without a protest, without a murmur, without a sigh. The faculty of resentment seemed dead in him.
His son grew up to be a fine handsome lad, but gave no sign of affection for his father. He, like the rest, treated him as a spiritless dependant who only existed to be made use of. In the broiling heat he would send his father to take his shoes to the cobbler, his shirts to the dhobi, his garments to the tailor. Bodo performed the tasks without a word, and was not even thanked. He had a growing sense of remorse, because he had little to leave his son in the way of worldly goods. " I've wronged my poor boy," he said with a sigh. " At least I'll do what I can to please him." But the boy cherished a grudge against his father for defraud- ing him of his inheritance. He treated him with a callous lack of consideration. When the son was entertaining fashionable friends, the father was sent away as someone to be ashamed of. And he would hear his boy say: " That's only a poor relative, who comes to worry us." So timorous Bodo became that, on entering the house, he would take off his shoes so as not to disturb his son in company. If his boy was engaged, the man would slink away on tip-toe, just like a frightened thief.
His hesitant offers of little presents were rejected with scorn. " Why do you waste your pennies like that? " he would be told. " How many times I have told you not to bring me such trash? " Bodo would smile vacantly, leave his humble offering, and depart. Such a thing as a caress was, of course, not to be thought of. How dare he even approach his son with such intention?
He would retire to his small stuffy room, tired and weary after long tramps, until blessed sleep wrought relief. So his life went on, day after day, month after month, year after year. It was a nullity of existence in an abyss of anguish and heart-ache.
And now, as he sat on the door-step in the sultry heat of the July afternoon, all this came to him in blinding flashes.
It was as though some veil that had pressed upon his brain had been swept away. The sun had infused in him a new mood—a mood of fierce resentment and mad rage. How wasted and futile his life had been! How contemptible appeared his abject, dog-like submission to his callous, un- dutiful family! Why had he been such a fool? Oh why?
In a kind of cold fury he rose, shaking in every limb, determined to make someone pay for all this. But on whom should he be avenged? and how? He stood there at the cross-roads, wondering, stupidly wondering. . . .
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