Free White Man Falling by Mike Stocks Page A

dachshund.
    Nothing much is said for a time while DDR stands over Swami and watches him weep. “Come come,” he tries, feebly, “let us not be unduly pessimistic,” but he gets no
response. He looks at his watch, nearly gives Swami a pat on the shoulder, nearly opens the door to bellow, “Get this blubbing fool out of here!” At last he sits down in exasperation
and says, “All right all right, I wasn’t going to stop your pension, it was just my little threat, I just don’t want you sniffing around this white man. The reputation of my
hotels is a valuable commodity, don’t you understand? What’s the matter with you, haven’t you ever leant on anyone to get what you want?” Still no response from Swami, and
just as DDR is wondering if Swami is ever going to move or lift his head up, just as a bizarre thought comes to him about Swami having his own handcart and being wheeled around, like Bobby, from
place to place, he hears something.
    “What?”
    “Six!” Swami repeats in a whisper, raising his tear-stained face. “Six!”
    “More numbers? Six? Six what?”
    “Daughters! No money!” His head goes down once more and then comes up again. “Job – no! No – dowry!”
    “Yes yes but—”
    “No… talking, no…”
    “All right.”
    “…respect—”
    “But—”
    “No,” Swami groans, in desolation, “elefates.”
    “What?”
    “Elefa. Ele… phants,” Swami snivels, thinking of those long-lost times when he would pick his screaming daughters up and trumpet majestically.
    “No elephants…” DDR echoes helplessly, “yes yes that is very bad,” he agrees. He scratches his head. “But – I was just giving you small instructive
fright, you didn’t let me get to the end. It’s a question of correct procedure,” he adds, pained, as if Swami is guilty of a breach of etiquette. “I was going to frighten
the daylights out of you and then offer to get your disability pension moved up to full pay as long as you keep your nose out of this business – after all, you got your disability in the line
of duty. I am definitely super-supporter of the police!” This is true, he supports them in all kinds of ways. They are no slouches in supporting him, either.
    After he has made this generous offer – which has come to him spontaneously – he strokes Bobby’s nape with long, slow sweeps of his hand, and wonders to himself whether
he’ll fulfil the promise or not.
    Swami lifts his head cautiously. He looks at the slobbering hound in the handcart, which is ecstatic under his master’s attentions, then up to DDR. When he tries to speak, nothing comes
out at first. He tries again and there is not much difference. At last he gives up and just says, “No talking,” then holds his head in his hands once more.
    “The Mahatma himself observed a vow of silence on Mondays,” DDR observes. There is a long pause before he continues. “My guru hasn’t spoken in over fifteen years,”
he says at last, and he gestures towards the photograph of Sri Sri Dravidananda Gurkkal, a man whose mysterious encircling tattoo is said by his devotees to have been present at birth; a man who
stands in front of a tree for twelve hours a day, every day, doing nothing, saying nothing, not moving, while thousands and thousands and thousands of pilgrims watch enraptured; a man around whom
has grown up a vast ashram complex, a minor town, and an ever-expanding programme of charitable endeavours, all founded and funded and managed by his inspired devotees; a godhead, whose silence is
said to have penetrated to the starting point of the centre of the spiral of all knowledge.

 
7
    Swami is sitting on a white plastic chair on the verandah of Number 14/B, gazing unseeing into the belching traffic, occasionally glancing at his books in a faraway fashion; he
has done little else since being returned to his family from D.D. Rajendran’s house some four or five days ago. But what about Amma? Why is she coming out onto