Free Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma by R. K. Narayan

kindly meet the undersigned on any day during working hours.’ This brought the question back to the starting-point, and he did what he did with the first letter – obliterated it, and the R.M.S. continued to suffer.

CHAPTER TWO
    He hurt his thumb while pinning up a set of proofs. He put away the paper to suck the drop of blood that appeared on his thumb, and sat back. He cracked his fingers: they felt cramped, the tips of his fingers were discoloured with the printers’ ink transferred from rugged proof sheets. His joints ached. He realized that he had been sitting hunched up for several hours correcting proofs. He rose to his feet, picking up the proofs, folded them and heaved them downstairs with the shout: ‘Proofs’ directed towards the printer. He paused for a moment at the northern window, looking at a patch of blue sky, and turned away. He paced up and down. He was searching for the right word. He had been writing a series: ‘Life’s Background’. The entire middle page had been occupied with it for some numbers. He had tried to summarize, in terms of modern living, some of the messages he had imbibed from the Upanishads on the conduct of life, a restatement of subjective value in relation to a social outlook. This statement was very necessary for his questioning mind; for while he thundered against municipal or social shortcomings a voice went on asking: ‘Life and the world and all this is passing – why bother about anything? The perfect and the imperfect are all the same. Why really bother?’ He had to find an answer to the question. And that he did in this series. He felt that this was a rather heavy theme for a weekly reading public, and he was doing his best to word it in an easy manner, in terms of actual experience. It was no easy task. And that entire Thursday he spent in thinking of it, pacing up and down, pricking himself with the pin through absent-mindedness; he roamed his little attic, round and round like a sleep-walker, paused at the farthest window to listen to the rumble of Sarayu. It seemed ages since he had gone to the river. He resolved to remedy this lapse very soon. When he came to the window he could hear theuproar emanating from the tenements below – he always spent a few minutes listening to the medley of voices. He wished he could open the window and take a look at the strife below, just to see what exactly was troubling them, but the owners of the tenements had their legal injunction against it. His mind dwelt for a brief moment on landlords.
    Awaiting the right sentence for his philosophy, he had spent several hours already; he must complete the article by the evening if he was to avoid serious dislocation in the press. Tomorrow there were other things to do. He suddenly flung out his arm and cried: ‘I have got it, just the right –’ and turned towards his table in a rush. He picked up his pen; the sentence was shaping so very delicately; he felt he had to wait upon it carefully, tenderly, lest it should elude him once again: it was something like the very first moment when a face emerges on the printing paper in the developing tray – something tender and fluid, one had to be very careful if one were not to lose it for ever … He poised his pen as if he were listening to some faint voice and taking dictation. He held his breath, for fear that he might lose the thread, and concentrated all his being on the sentence, when he heard a terrific clatter up the stairs. He gnashed his teeth. ‘The demons are always waiting around to create a disturbance; they are terrified of any mental concentration.’ The printer appeared in the doorway, his face beaming. He came in, extending his hand:
    ‘Congratulations! I bring you jolly news. Your wife and son are waiting downstairs.’
    Srinivas pushed back his chair and rose. ‘What! What!’ He became incoherent. He ran out on the landing and looked down: there he saw his wife and son standing below, with their trunks and luggage