Free A Tiger for Malgudi by R. K. Narayan

my face before I started my round of runs, saying, ‘Mark the time, Raja, and keep up your speed.’
    Captain presented his shows six months in a year in Malgudi town. A team of men went round to the villages in the district clad in fancy costumes and with the beat of drums and a megaphone advertised the circus. They drove around village streets in a Model T Ford painted black and yellow to remind one of the tiger. They went up to Kommal, the farthest village, nearly fifty kilometres from Malgudi. On festivals and holidays the patrons arrived by bus, lorry, bullock-carts, and bicycles for the show; coming into the town for the circus was an exciting event for villagers, who turned up in family groups and camped in the town under the shade of trees, in the veranda of Albert Mission College, or in their wagons after unyoking the bullocks and leaving them to graze in the fields. At every show all seats in the galleries were taken as were the benches and wooden chairs and the squatting space on bare ground not far from the stage. Six cushioned seats were always kept in reserve for a hierarchy of local officials on whose goodwill depended Captain’s survival.
    When the monsoon set in, in October-November, the circus moved out of Malgudi to other centres in a long caravan, parading the animals, which made the circus known all along the way; the central office at Malgudi worked all through the year.
    At every show, Captain made a speech, sometimes autobiographical and sometimes to boost a special act, such as mine. He delivered his message in at least three languages, as he explained: ‘... in Hindi since it is our national language and given to us by Mahatma Gandhi himself; also in English because as our beloved respected leader Nehru put it, it opens a window on the world. In Tamil, because it is, ah, our Mother Tongue, in which our greatest poets like Kamban and Valluvar composed; also the sublime inspiring patriotic songs of Bharathi, who can ever forget them?’ Whatever the language, he spoke flamboyantly, always touching upon his personal life. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends, Romans, and countrymen, as Shakespeare said, I love my circus and the animals that have made my business a success; and I have pitched my tent here because I love Malgudi; I love Malgudi because I was born and grew up here. I was a backwoods boy - living and playing in the dust of Abu Lane. They sent me, hoping to make a scholar of me, to Albert Mission School, but fate willed it otherwise.
    I won’t waste your time recounting my adventures while you are all eager to see the performance begin. You will see my life history in book form (a shiny colourful brochure with his portrait on the cover) sold at the gate at cost price, so that young people may cultivate ambition and a spirit of adventure and bring our nation a great name ... All that I wish to say is that the great circus master Dadhaji of Poona adopted me and trained me though I looked like a vagrant and was indeed one; and he employed me at first to clean the stables and then taught me how to educate animals. I cannot begin the show without bowing in homage and gratitude to the memory of that great master ...’
     
Captain was considerate and helped us conserve our energies by regulating our rest periods. On off days he sent away all the herbivores to forage in the lower reaches of Mempi range — camels, horses, elephants, and zebra went out in a sort of parade through the streets of Malgudi and returned in time for the next show. A set of animals always had at least two days’ rest between performances. He did a lot of paperwork beforehand, scheduling each animal’s duty and off-hours in a month. He studied the roster containing the names of animals (he had christened every one of the animals in his collection) and drew up a sort of chart for each one of them. The most strenuous part of their lives was during the training period. At that stage he was unsparing; and if they perished