LALAJEE

The passenger steamer was late in arriving from Samaria hat.  I was standing on the landing stage watching the passengers disembark and hurry up the ramp to the broad gauge train which I had arranged to detain a few minutes for them.  Last to leave the steamer was a thin man with eyes sunk deep in their sockets, wearing a patched suit which in the days of long ago had been white and carrying a small bundle tied up in a coloured handkerchief.  By clutching the handrail of the gangway for support, he managed to gain the landing stage, but he turned off at the ramp, walked with slow and feeble steps to the edge of the river and was violently and repeatedly sick.  Having stooped to wash his face, he opened his bundle, took it from a sheet, spread it on the bank, and lay down with the Ganges water lapping the soles of his feet.  Evidently, he had no intention of catching the train, for when the warning bell rang and the engine whistled, he made no movement.  He was lying on his back and when I told him he had missed his train, he opened his sunken eyes to look up at me and said, ' I have no need of trains, Sahib, for I am dying'.
               It was the mango season, the hottest time of the year, when cholera is always at its worst.  When the man passed me at the foot of the gangway, I suspected he was suffering from cholera and my suspicions were confirmed when I saw him being violently sick.  In reply to my questions, he said he was travelling alone and had no friends at Mokameh Ghat.  So I helped him to his feet and led him the two hundred yards that separated my bungalow from the Ganges.  Then I made him comfortable in my punkah coolie's house which was empty and detached from the servant's quarters.
               I had been at Mokameh Ghat ten years employing a large labour force.  Some of the people lived under my supervision in houses provided by me and the balance lived in surrounding villages. I had seen enough of cholera among my own people and also among the villagers to make me pray that if I ever contracted the hateful and foul disease, some Good Samaritan would take pity on me and put a bullet through my head, or give me an overdose of opium.
               Few will agree with me that the tens of thousands of people reported as having died of cholera each year at least half die not of cholera but of fear. We who live in India, as distinct from those who visit the country for a longer or shorter period are fatalists, believing a man cannot die before his allotted time.  This, however, does not mean that we are indifferent to epidemic disease.  Cholera is dreaded throughout the land, and when it comes in epidemic form as many die of stark fear as die of the dreaded disease.
               There was no question that the man in my Punkah coolie's house was suffering from a bad attack of cholera and if he was to survive, his faith and my crude treatment alone would pull him through; for the only medical aid within miles was a brute of a doctor, as callous as he was inefficient, and whose fat oily throat I am convinced I should have one day had the pleasure of cutting had not a young probationer clerk, who had been sent to me to train, found a less messy way of removing this medico who was hated by the whole staff.
               I could not spare much time to nurse the thin man for I already had three cholera patients on my hands.  From my servants, I could expect no help for they were of a different caste to the sufferer. There was no justification for exposing them to the risk of infection.  However, this did not matter, provided I could still instill sufficient confidence into the man that my treatment was going to make him well.  To this end, I made it clear of cremating him but to make him well and that it was only with his cooperation that this could be effected.  That first night, I feared that in spite of our joint efforts, he would die, but towards morning he rallied and from then on his condition continued to improve and all the remained to be done was to build up his strength which cholera drains out of the human body more quickly than any other disease.
               At the end of a week, he was able to give me his story.
He was a Lala, a merchant and at one time possessed a flourishing grain business, then he made the mistake of taking, as partner a man about whom he knew nothing.  For a few years, his business prospered and all went well but one day when he returned from a long journey, he found his shop empty and his partner gone.  The little money in his possession was only sufficient to meet his personal debts and bereft of credit, he had to seek employment.  This he found with a merchant with whom he had traded and for ten years he had worked on seven rupees a month which was only sufficient to support himself and his son.  His wife having died shortly after his partner robbed him.  He was on his way from Muzaffarpur to Gaya, on his master's business, when he was taken ill in the train.  As he got worse on board the ferry steamer, he had crawled ashore to die on the banks of the sacred Ganges.
               Lalajee, I never knew him by any other name stayed with me for about a month, and then one day, he requested permission to continue his journey to Gaya.  The request was made as we were walking through the sheds, for Lalajee was strong enough now to accompany me for a short distance each morning when I set out for work and when I asked him what he would do if on arrival at Gaya he found his master had filled his place, he said he would try to find other employment, 'Why not try to get someone to help you to be a merchant again?'
               I asked and he replied. The thought of being a merchant again, and able to educate my son, is with me night and day, Sahib, but there is no one in all the world who would trust me a servant on seven rupees a month and without any security to offer, with the Five hundred rupees I should need to give me a new start'.
               The train for Gaya left at 8:00 pm and when that evening I returned to the bungalow a little before that hour, I found Lalajee with freshly washed clothes, and a bundle in his hand, a little bigger than when he had arrived with, waiting in the veranda to say goodbye to me. When I put a ticket for Gaya and five one-hundred rupee notes into his hand he like the man with the coal grimed face was tongue-tied. All he could do was to keep glancing from the notes in his hand to my face, until the bell that warned passengers the train would leave in five minutes rang; the putting his head on my feet, he said: 'within one year your slave will return you this money'.
               And so Lalajee left me, taking with him the greater part of my savings. That I would see him, I never doubted, for the poor of India never forget a kindness; but the promise Lalajee has made was, I felt sure, beyond his powers of accomplishment. In this, I was wrong, for returning late one evening, I saw a man dressed in spotless white standing on my veranda.  The light from the room behind him was in my eyes, and I did not recognize him until I spoke. It was Lalajee, come a few days before the expiry of time limit, he had set himself.  That night as he sat on the floor near my chair he told me of his trading transactions, and the success that had attended them.  Starting with few bags of grain and being content with a profit of only four annas per bag , he had gradually and steadily built up his business until he was able to deal in consignments up to thirty tons in weight, on which he was making a profit of three rupees per ton.  His son was in a good school, as he could now afford to keep a wife he had married the daughter of a rich merchant in Patna; all this he had accomplished in a little under twelve months.  As the time drew near for his train to leave, he laid five one-hundred rupee notes on my knee. Then, he took a bag from his pocket, held it out to me and said. 'This is the interest, calculated at twenty-five per cent, that I owe you on the money that you lent me.  I believe I deprived him of half the pleasure he had anticipated from his visit when I told him it was not our custom to accept interest from our friends.

Gokula Anand comments:
There are two types of stories: entertaining ones and those that have moral content for the betterment of society. This beautiful story or real incident will instill good values inside those who read it.
Jim Corbett was a good samaritan and had lot of helping qualities. He had detained the train for few minutes so that the passengers on steamer boat can board the train. He had helped a sick man and that too suffering from cholera. He allowed him in his house and cured him.
He lent five hundred rupees in the period of time when 7 rupees was monthly salary.
He had the ability to judge a man and trust him for five hundred rupees. Lalajee too returned the money. Lalajee trusted a wrong man, made him his partner and lost everything in the beginning.
Even Jim corbett underestimated Lalajee's business skills and says that the promise of returning the money back to him was beyond his powers of accomplishment. Lalajee proved him wrong with amazing success in just one year.

Gokula Anand

THE ACCUMULATOR AND WRITER

https://waterbubbleatsea.blogspot.com/
https://leplayonchessclub.blogspot.com/

The Lament

     It is twilight. A thick wet snow is slowly twirling around the newly lighted street lamps and lying in soft thin layers on roofs, on horses’ backs, on people’s shoulders and hats. The cabdriver, IonaPotapov, is quite white and looks like a phantom: he is bent double as far as a human body can bend double; he is seated on his box; he never makes a move. If a whole snowdrift fell on him, it seems as if he would not find it necessary to shake it off. His little horse is also quite white, and remains motionless; its immobility, its angularity and its straight wooden-looking legs, even close by, give it the appearance of a gingerbread horse worth a kopek. It is, no doubt, plunged in deep thought. If you were snatched from the plough, from your usual gray surroundings, and were thrown into this slough full of monstrous lights, unceasing noise and hurrying people, you too would find it difficult not to think.

Iona and his little horse have not moved from their place for a long while. They left their yard before dinner and, up to now, not a fare. The evening mist is descending over the town, the white lights of the lamps are replacing brighter rays, and the hubbub of the street is getting louder.

‘Cabby for Viborg Way!’ suddenly hears Iona. ‘Cabby!’

Iona jumps and, through his snow-covered eyelashes, sees an officer in a greatcoat, with his hood over his head.

‘Viborg way!’ the officer repeats. ‘Are you asleep, eh? Viborg way!’

With a nod of assent Iona picks up the reins, in consequence of which layers of snow slip off the horse’s back and neck. The officer seats himself in the sleigh, the cabdriver smacks his lips to encourage his horse, stretches out his neck like a swan, sits up and, more from habit than necessity, brandishes his whip. The little horse also stretches its neck, bends its wooden-looking legs, and makes a move undecidedly.

‘What are you doing, werewolf!’ is the exclamation Iona hears from the dark mass moving to and fro, as soon as they have started.

‘Where the devil are you going? To the r-r-right!’

‘You do not know how to drive. Keep to the right!’ calls the officer angrily.

A coachman from a private carriage swears at him; a passerby, who has run across the road and rubbed his shoulder against the horse’s nose, looks at him furiously as he sweeps the snow from his sleeve. Iona shifts about on his seat as if he were on needles, moves his elbows as if he were trying to keep his equilibrium, and gasps about like someone suffocating, who does not understand why and wherefore he is there.

‘What scoundrels they all are!’ jokes the officer; ‘one would think they had all entered into an agreement to jostle you or fall under your horse.’

Iona looks around at the officer and moves his lips. He evidently wants to say something but the only sound that issues is a snuffle.

    ‘What?’ asks the officer.

Iona twists his mouth into a smile and, with an effort, says hoarsely:

      ‘My son, Barin, died this week.’

          ‘Hm! What did he die of?’ Iona turns with his whole body towards his fare and says: ‘And who knows! They say high fever. He was three days in the hospital and then died. God’s will be done.’           “Turn round! The devil!’ sounds from the darkness. ‘Have you popped off, old doggie, eh? Use your eyes!’

     ‘Go on, go on,’ says the officer, ‘otherwise we shall not get there by tomorrow. Hurry up a bit!’ The cabdriver again stretches his neck, sits up and, with a bad grace, brandishes his whip. Several times again he turns to look at his fare, but the latter has closed his eyes and, apparently, is not disposed to listen. Having deposited the officer in the Viborg, he stops by the tavern, doubles himself up on his seat, and again remains motionless, while the snow once more begins to cover him and his horse. An hour, and another… Then, along the footpath, with a squeak of galoshes, and quarrelling, come three young men, two of them tall and lanky, the third one short and humpbacked.

‘Cabby, to the Police Bridge!’ in a cracked voice calls the humpback. ‘The three of us for two griveniks.’

Iona picks up his reins and smacks his lips. Two griveniks is not a fair price, but he does not mind whether it is a rouble or five kopeks—to him it is all the same now, so long as they are fares. The young men, jostling each other and using bad language, approach the sleigh and all three at once try to get onto the seat; then begins a discussion as to which two shall sit and who shall be the one to stand. After wrangling, abusing each other and much petulance, it is at last decided that the humpback shall stand as he is the smallest.

        ‘Now then, hurry up!’ says the humpback in a twanging voice, as he takes his place and breathes in Iona’s neck. ‘Old furry! Here, mate, what a cap you have! There is not a worse one to be found in all Petersburg! …’

       ‘He-he—he-he’, giggles Iona. ‘Such a …’

   ‘Now you, ‘such a’, hurry up, are you going the whole way at this pace? Are you...Do you want it in the neck?’

              ‘My head feels like bursting,’ says one of the lanky ones. ‘Last night at the Donkmasoves, Vaska and I drank the whole of four bottles of cognac.’

     “I don’t understand what you lie for,’ says the other lanky one angrily; ‘you lie like a brute.’

   ‘God strike me, it’s the truth!’

‘It’s as much the truth as that a louse coughs!’

‘He-he,’ grins Iona, ‘what gay young gentlemen!’

‘Pshaw, go to the devil!’ says the humpback indignantly.

‘Are you going to get on or not, you old pest? Is that the way to drive? Use the whip a bit! Go on, devil, go on, give it to him well!’

Iona feels at his back the little man wriggling, and the tremble in his voice. He listens to the insults hurled at him, sees the people, and little by little the feeling of loneliness leaves him. The humpback goes on swearing until he gets mixed up in some elaborate six-foot oath, or chokes with coughing. The lankies begin to talk about a certain Nadejda Petrovna. Iona looks round at them several times; he waits for a temporary silence, then, turning round again, he murmurs:

‘My son… died this week.’

‘We must all die,’ sighs the humpback, wiping his lips after an attack of coughing. ‘Now, hurry up, hurry up! Gentlemen, I really cannot go any farther like this! When will he get us there?’

‘Well, just you stimulate him a little in the neck!’

‘You old pest, do you hear, I’ll bone your neck for you! If one treated the like of you with ceremony, one would have to go on foot! Do you hear, old serpent Gorinytch! Or do you not care a spit!”

Iona hears rather than feels the blow they deal him.

‘He-he’ he laughs. ‘They are gay young gentlemen, God bless’em!’

‘Cabby, are you married?’ asks a lanky one.

‘I? He-he, gay young gentlemen! Now I have only a wife and the moist ground…He, ho, ho, …that is to say, the grave. My son has died, and I am alive…A wonderful thing, death mistook the door…instead of coming to me, it went to my son…’

Iona turns round to tell them how his son died but, at this moment, the humpback, giving a little sigh, announces, ‘Thank God, we have at last reached our destination,’ and Iona watches them disappear through the dark entrance. Once more he is alone, and again surrounded by silence… His grief, which has abated for a short while, returns and rends his heart with greater force. With an anxious and hurried look, he searches among the crowds passing on either side of the street to find whether there may be just one person who will listen to him. But the crowds hurry by without noticing him or his trouble. Yet it is such an immense, illimitable, grief. Should his heart break and the grief pour out, it would flow over the whole earth, so it seems, and yet no one sees it. It has managed to conceal itself in such an insignificant shell that no one can see it even by day and with a light.

Iona sees a hall porter with some sacking and decides to talk to him.

‘Friend, what sort of time is it?’ he asks.

‘Past nine. What are you standing here for? Move on.’

Iona moves on a few steps, doubles himself up, and abandons himself to his grief. He sees it is useless to turn to people for help. In less than five minutes he straightens himself, holds up his head as if he felt some sharp pain, and gives a tug at the reins; he can bear it no longer. ‘The stables,’ he thinks, and the little horse, as if it understood, starts off at a trot.

About an hour and a half later, Iona is seated by a large dirty stove. Around the stove, on the floor, on the benches, people are snoring; the air is thick and suffocatingly hot. Iona looks at the sleepers, scratches himself, and regrets having returned so early.

‘I have not even earned my fodder,’ he thinks. ‘That’s what’s my trouble. A man who knows his job, who has had enough to eat and his horse too, can always sleep peacefully.’

A young cabdriver, in one of the corners, half gets up, grunts sleepily, and stretches towards a bucket of water.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Iona asks him.

‘Don’t I want a drink!’

‘That’s so? Your good health. But listen, mate—you know, my son is dead…Did you hear? This week, in the hospital…It’s a long story.’

Iona looks to see what effect his words have, but sees none—the young man has hidden his face and is fast asleep again. The old man sighs and scratches his head. Just as much as the young one wants to drink, the old man wants to talk. It will soon be a week since his son died, and he has not been able to speak about it properly to anyone. One must tell it slowly and carefully; how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. One must describe every detail of the funeral, and the journey to the hospital to fetch the dead son’s clothes. His daughter, Anissia, has remained in the village—one must talk about her too. It is nothing he has to tell? Surely the listener would gasp and sigh, and sympathise with him? It is better, too, to talk to women; two words are enough to make them sob.

 ‘I’ll go and look after my horse,’ thinks Iona; ‘there’s always time to sleep. No fear of that!’

He puts on his coat and goes to the stable to his horse; he thinks of the corn, the hay, the weather. When he is alone, he dare not think of his son; he can speak about him to anyone, but to think of him, and picture him to himself, is unbearably painful.

‘Are you tucking in?’ Iona asks his horse, looking at its bright eyes: ‘go on, tuck in, though we’ve not earned our corn, we can eat hay. Yes I am too old to drive—my son could have, not I. He was a first-rate cabdriver. If only he had lived!’

Iona is silent for a moment, then continues: ‘That’s how it is, my old horse. There’s no more Kuzma Ionitch. He has left us to live, and he went off pop. Now let’s say you had a foal, you were the foal’s mother and, suddenly, let’s say, that foal went and left you to live after him. It would be sad, wouldn’t it?’

The little horse munches, listens and breathes over its master’s hand… Iona’s feelings are too much for him and he tells the little horse the whole story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anton Chekhov (1810–1904) was born in a middle-class family in Russia. He studied medicine at Moscow University. His first short story appeared in 1880 and, in the next seven years, he produced more than six hundred stories. He also wrote plays— Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchards are among the more famous ones. His work greatly influenced the modern short story and drama. The main theme of Chekov’s short stories is life’s pathos, caused by the inability of human beings to respond to, or even to communicate with, one another.

About english language

 Just 26 letters
A language has been created
English
Though very superficial, it has managed to spread and rule the world.
Great writers and their observations have become less known and nothing because they wrote in different languages
Simple writers have become great ones. Their advantage - the language of english.
......
The western psychology is superficial.
The allopathy form of medicine is superficial too.
Everything western are superficial but very attractive.
......
26 letters fit in well in a computer keyboard. These days the computers rule the external world. The combination of english along with it have made them omnipotent.
......
There is a higher language much better than english and all other languages of the human world - the language of silence belonging to emotions and feelings. When you are filled with an emotion or feeling, you do not use words.
......
There exists nothing in this world as harmless language.
All languages are harmful.
If you are a smoker, smoking one cigarette a day, if you think or write in english for 6 hours, you will smoke 5 cigarettes that day.
It is just like eating cake or ice cream. If in excess, you will become uncomfortable and unhealthy.
Talk non-stop for 11 hours and observe what happens to the internal condition of your body.
Energy condition becomes like boiling water on a stove - exactly like that. Really, keep talking for 11 hours non stop. Become a professor, teacher or something like that.
A well where water is silent. Without disturbance. Throw a stone, it is disturbed, sound is produced, ripples are produced. Silent mind and you. Pronounce a word, what happens to the well will happen to you.
......
Do not give more importance to any language.
Do not feel better with any language.
Do not feel great speaking english.
Become a "feeling" being instead of a "talking" being.

This is for your betterment.