'When?'

'On the very first day I saw you.'

'That's not enough. I can't marry without Bapu's sanction.'

He became positive and dynamic. He swore: 'We shall marry this very moment.' He dragged her by the hand into the inner sanctum. He ran hither and thither feverishly doing things. He lit the lamp and placed it before the image, whose nose and arms were broken, but whose eyes still shed grace. He ran out and came back with a few leaves and flowers, and placed them at the foot of the pedestal. He took out a thread from his spinning wheel saying, 'You cannot have a thali more sacred than this, nor a priest more holy than this god.' When he attempted to place the thread round her neck, she gently drew herself away from him.

A sudden firmness came in her voice, as she said: 'Know this, Sriram. If I had not trusted you I'd not have come here again and again.' He did not understand why she was saying it. He felt bewildered. Why was she talking like this? Perhaps she suddenly remembered that she ought to marry Gorpad or someone else. Yes, now it flashed across his mind there used to be some significant exchange of looks between her and Gorpad. What a fellow to marry, rough as emery paper! A stab of jealousy shook him for a moment and he said, 'Will you swear before this god that you will marry only me.'

'Yes, if I marry at all, and mark this, if Bapu agrees to it.'

'Bapu! Bapu!' It filled him with despair. He wailed: 'He is too big to bother about us. Don't trouble him with our affairs.'

She said, 'I won't marry if he doesn't sanction it. I can't do it.'

'If he asks you to marry someone else,' he asked pathetically, checking at the last second the name 'Gorpad'.

'Bapu has better things to do than finding a husband for me,' she said clearly, unequivocally.

He blinked for a moment. The excitement made his throat parched. He wanted to ask something again. But even in his confused state, he was aware that he was saying the same thing over and over. He blinked pathetically. The broken-armed god looked on. Sriram had never bargained for such an inconclusive love-making. It had begun with such spirit that he had felt he would be shot into elysium next moment, but here he was, standing before a god immobilized and listening to an obscure speech. The girl would probably take him for a fool to leave so much space between them. He tried to remedy it by approaching her again and attempting to storm her as he did a moment ago. The first time he had the advantage of a sudden impulse. But now it didn't work. She just beat down his outstretched arm: 'No. You will not touch me again.' She said it with such authority that he felt foolish.

'I didn't intend to if you don't want it. I know you hate me,' he said childishly.

She simply said, 'Why should I hate you?'

'Because I am bothering you.'

'How?' she asked.

'By, by asking you to marry me. It's wrong, perhaps wrong.'

'It wouldn't be if Bapu agreed to it.'

He resigned himself. 'All right,' he said. 'As you please '

'We shall marry,' she said, 'the very minute Bapu agrees.' She was very considerate.

He felt it was time for him to ask again: 'Do you like me?'

'Yes, when you don't misbehave.'

Days of listlessness and suspense followed. Sriram lost sight of her for a considerable period. He thought he had lost her for ever. It made him so paralysed that all day he did nothing but lounge in front of his cottage going over in mind again and again all that had happened that night. He had suspended his usual round of lecturing, agitation, and demonstrations; he didn't seem to think he owed any duty to the country. He ate and stayed in his den all day, he had read the joke about a 'He' and a 'She' two hundred times already. He saw the train arrive and depart. He saw the postman stop on the boulder and go away to the estates. He lounged against the corner tablet and brooded endlessly.

After all, one day she turned up. She came at noon. It seemed significant that she should avoid the dusk. The moment he sighted her on the bend, he gave a shout of joy and wanted to ask, 'Are you coming now, because it is a safe hour?' But he checked himself. He ran to meet her at the usual bend of the road. He asked: 'What news?' She didn't speak till they were back in their place. She sat down, leaned back on the tablet, took a letter out of her bag. Sriram snatched it hungrily and glanced through it: 'Blessed one, not yet... I am going to ask all workers if they are underground to come out. I want you to give yourself up at the nearest police station. Take your disciple along too. God bless you both.'

Sriram felt stunned. He read the letter over and over, trying to make out its significance. He tried to interpret it. '"Not yet," he says. What does he mean?'

'He just means that and nothing more,' she replied. 'It is never hard to understand what Bapuji says.'

Sriram felt amazed at the hardihood and calmness of the girl. She didn't seem to possess any feeling. She spoke of it with such indifference. He was appalled at her calmness. She was probably feeling relieved that Bapuji had vetoed their plans. It suited her very well Gorpad. And of course, in his sick imagination he felt that probably Mahatmaji was also in favour of Gorpad, he'd naturally prefer to marry her to a grim and dry-as-dust worker like Gorpad. But why couldn't she be plain with him?

'Why can't you be plain?' he asked her all of a sudden.

'What do you mean?'

He felt tongue-tied, and asked: 'Why should Bapu not want us to marry?'

'He doesn't say so.'

He sighed: 'I thought he would send us his blessing, but he has only turned down our programme.' In his disappointment, he felt sore with the whole world, not excluding Bapu. He suddenly asked her: 'Don't you feel disappointed that we are not married?'

'I have other things to think of,' she said.

'Oh!' Sriram said significantly. 'What may they be?'

'I am going to gaol ...'

The full significance of the whole thing dawned upon him now. He cried, 'Bharati, you just can't do that, what do you mean?'

She replied, 'You will have to come too ...' She opened the letter and glanced through it again. 'Bapu has also given instructions as to how I should occupy my time in gaol. "This is an opportunity for you to learn some new language. I wish you could read Tulasi Das Ramayana without any assistance; you speak Hindi well, but your literary equipment will also have to be equally good. You may ask the gaol superintendent to give you facilities if you are going to be classed as B to take your charka along. I would like to hear that you are spinning your quota in gaol. Don't for a moment ever feel that you are wasting your time. Wherever you may be with a copy of Ramayana and Gita, and a spinning wheel, there you are rightly occupied. Anyway look after your health. Very mild exercise may be necessary, you may get it by walking around the compound if you are permitted ... If you would rather not be in B class but would like to be an ordinary class prisoner like others, you will have to ask for it. All that I am saying to you applies to your disciple too."'

Sriram pleaded, 'Don't. Please tell Bapu ...'

Bharati looked at him with wonder. 'After all these months of association and work, how can you speak like this? How can we do anything other than what Bapuji asks us to do?'

Sriram had no cogent answer to give. He hung down his head. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten that he was a soldier in the struggle for freedom.

She said resolutely, 'I ought to be there already. I am reporting to the police station at ...'

'How long will they keep you in gaol?' he asked pathetically.

'How can I say?' she replied. 'Are you coming too?'

He said, 'Not now. I want to think it over. But I will readily come if they will keep me in the same prison, preferably in the same cell.'

'It won't be possible, the government won't keep us together,' she said.

This enraged Sriram. The whole universe seemed to be organized to defeat his purpose, even the government which differed from the Mahatma on most matters seemed to be in accord with him where it concerned him and Bharati. The worst of it was that Bharati herself seemed to rejoice in the arrangement. He became wild at the thought and said, 'Why is everyone opposed to my loving you?'

She took pity on him and said tenderly, 'Poor fool. You have lost your wits completely.'

'How dare you say that?' he shouted.

'There is no point in your shouting,' she said. 'Don't let us quarrel. I will be gone in a moment ... I want to report myself before it strikes four. If they want to send me to the Central or some other gaol they must have time to catch the evening train.'

'What shall I do without you?' he wailed.

'That is why Bapu has asked you to report too.'

He shook his head. 'I have a lot of things to do outside ... Bapu has given everyone freedom to carry on the Satyagraha in his own manner. He doesn't really mean me,' he said dolefully.

In answer Bharati seized the letter and held it open under his nose. '"This applies to your disciple also," he says.'

'But that doesn't mean me. It may mean anyone,' said Sriram.

'I thought he always understood whom he meant by "disciple",' she said grimly. 'Anyway the choice is yours. You may do what you think best. I am doing what seems to me the right thing to do.'

'How do you know it is the right thing to do?'

'I need not answer that question,' she said irritated. 'If I had known that you would treat Bapuji's word so lightly '

Sriram felt crushed by her tone. 'Oh, Bharati, don't add to my troubles by mistaking me so completely. I revere the Mahatma, you know I do. Why do you suspect me? Have I not followed every word of what he has been saying? ... Otherwise I should not have been here. I should not have left the comfort of my house. All that I want is some more time to think it over. I am ...' he brought out his masterpiece on an inspiration. 'I am only thinking of my grandmother. I want to see her before I am finally gaoled. That is why I asked you how long we should be in prison. She is very old, you know. I will surrender myself after I have seen her once. I must manage to see her.'

This idea seemed to soften the girl. She thought it over, leaning back on the tablet. She seemed to appreciate his tender feelings for his grandmother.

'That is all right, Sriram. I am sorry I mistook you.' He wanted to touch her arm, but he felt afraid to do so. She would surely say, 'Keep off, not until,' and that would irritate him again and make him speak nonsense.

She got up. He asked, 'Must you go?'

'Yes, it is late for me.'

He followed her sheepishly, 'When we meet again after the gaol, and wherever we may meet ... will you not forget me?'

'I will not forget you,' she said, catching her breath ever so lightly.

He loved her as she drew herself up, more than at any other time in his life, but he also felt afraid of her more than at any other time. He simply said, 'If you will not be angry with me, Bharati, I wish to ask one thing.'

'Yes?' she said, stopping and looking at him. He noticed beads of perspiration on her upper lip and wanted to wipe them off with his fingers. He was seized with desolation at the thought that he would not see her any more coming round the bend of the road. He wanted to seize her in his arms and take a stormy leave of her, but he had to content himself with asking, 'Will you marry me after we are out of all this, will you promise, if Bapuji permits?'

'Yes, I promise ...' she said and hurried off before he could talk to her or follow her. He stood where he was and saw her raising her hands to her eyes once or twice in order to wipe off the tears gathering there.

PART THREE.

A person called Jagadish dropped in one day very casually and introduced himself as a national worker. He said he was a photographer in Malgudi by profession, and claimed he had a formula for paralysing Britain in India. His studio in Malgudi with its dark interior served as a meeting ground for a group who were bent upon achieving immediate independence for the country. Jagadish came because he was in need of an out-of-town lair for his activities, and he was looking for a place where he could instal a small radio set which could also transmit code messages.

He came trudging uphill while Sriram was reclining against his stone tablet. He came with a haversack on his back and wore a khadi dress. Sriram had been reading his old newspaper. Bharati's exit from his life had created a vacuum, which he found it hard to fill. He felt somewhat confused as to what he should do with himself now.

Jagadish set down his haversack, sat beside Sriram and asked, 'You are Sriram?'

'Yes.'

'I am Jagadish. I used to know Bharati also. We are all doing more or less the same work.'

This was enough to stir Sriram out of his lethargy. He sat up and welcomed the other profusely with a great deal of warmth and asked, 'Where, where is she?'

'In detention ... We don't know where, but one of our boys met her just before she surrendered herself to the police.'

Sriram asked, 'Where is this man?'

'He too has surrendered to the police; before that he came and saw me.'

'Are you going to court imprisonment?'

'No, I have other things to do. That is why I have come here.'

Sriram was happy to find a kindred soul and at once poured into his ears his own feelings. 'I told Bharati not to be a fool ...'

'Don't say that. In this matter we all judge and act individually. Those who cannot follow Mahatmaji's orders are free to act as they think best.'

'How right you are,' Sriram cried, feeling he had blundered into the right set.

The other said, 'This is a war in which we are engaged, we are passing through abnormal times, and we do what we think best.'

He began to unpack his haversack. Sriram, always hungry and rather tired of the monotonous food he was eating, hoped childishly that something nice to eat would come out of it. He hoped it would be chocolate or fruit or biscuits. Oh, how long it was since he had eaten anything like idli, those white sensitive things made by his granny on most Sundays. Why Sunday and not on any other day, he had often asked. Now Jagadish took from his bag a small box, unwrapped the paper around it and brought out a tiny radio set.

'You will have to keep this,' he said. 'It can transmit as well as receive. I had it in my studio all these days ... but the police have become very watchful nowadays.' He installed it behind the god's image, and camouflaged it with some bamboo leaves.

From then on the god with the eyeless sockets saw a great deal of Jagadish. He was of short stature with a brown wrap around his shoulders. He had a shaggy crop of minute, springy curls, which spread out parallel to the earth, projecting several inches beyond his ears. He parted his shaggy crop in the middle and applied a vast quantity of oil over his curls so that the top of his skull was always resplendent, and often Sriram saw the midday sun shining back from his head in a thousand colours. He was a very dark man with a large bulbous nose, but there was a fire in him that consumed everything before it, and Sriram felt afraid to oppose him. It seemed incredible that an elegant slender creature like Bharati should ever have spoken to this bear-like personality.

A stab of jealousy passed through him. Could it be that she had ever toyed with the notion of marrying him? God knew what he did with himself when he was out of sight. How did he make a living out of photography? Sometimes he didn't appear for days, and when he turned up he explained, 'The wedding season, you know. More fools getting married, and they drop in to get themselves photographed. I can't afford to waive all the business.' Or he explained, 'The jasmine season, and this is a heavy time for a photographer. What a lot of young girls come with jasmine buds knitted in their braids the problem for the photographer is to photograph a girl's face and the back of her jasmine-covered head simultaneously, which is what they demand. Poor things, they sit up all night when they have the jasmine in their hair, for fear of crushing it on the pillows. They arrive at the rate of two a minute. When they are in the darkness of the studio, I try to find out their politics and give them our cyclostyled circulars and the latest news. The studio is a help for us in this job. When anyone comes there he is more responsive than he is anywhere else. People generally come to a studio with a cheerful mind, ready to oblige the photographer by being agreeable and responsive, and by listening to all he has to say, the same as being with a barber. They have a feeling that they are obliged to the photographer in some vague way and readily listen to his talk, and I make use of this for our national cause. That's why I keep the studio going, although it's so difficult, without a proper supply of materials. When our country gets independence, if I have anything to do with things, you will see what I shall do to the beggars who are black-marketing spools now!' He ground his teeth at the thought of them.

He was soon converting the temple into a fortress. He explained: 'The advantage of this place, do you know what it is? Except for a few antiquarians, no one knows of its existence. And it is not visible from outside. I've observed it from various points. It cannot be seen from the road down below. I wonder why anyone built a temple here at all. I believe it must have been used as a place for conspirators a thousand years ago,' and he laughed grimly. Sriram laughed. He began to like him.

'Don't think this is always going to be safe,' said the other. 'Sooner or later they will find it.'

'There is an underground chamber,' began Sriram.

'Yes, where I know aged cobras live, if you prefer them to the police. But we have to manage somehow between the cobras and the police.'

'Yes, yes, with so much to do '

Jagadish handed him a small axe and told him to cut the bamboo foliage, large branches of it, and drag them up. Sriram went at it till the skin on his palm smarted and peeled off. Jagadish induced Sriram to climb the rampart of the old temple and stick the foliage here and there according to his directions. He was shouting energetically. Standing in the sun all day, his face shone like mahogany with sweat. He said, 'I can screen this whole mountain if it comes to that.' Sriram felt tired and indignant. He wondered, 'Why should I let this fellow order me about, when he does nothing but stand around and instruct?' Probably it would have been more pleasant to have gone to gaol. But Jagadish never gave him much opportunity to dwell on such thoughts. He said: 'We are waging a war, remember. Mahatmaji in his own way and we in our own. All our aims are the same.'

'But I thought we were all working out the Mahatma's orders.'

'We are, we are,' he said vaguely. 'I used to be a devoted follower too. I'm still one, but he is no longer there to guide us. What can we do? He permits us all to carry on our work to the best of our abilities.'

'But strictly non-violently,' said Sriram.

'Of course, this camouflaging is not violence. It doesn't hurt anybody. It's done only that we may be left alone to work out our plans without interference. I don't want even that postman to see too much of this place. After all, he is a member of the Imperial Government.'