Free A Tiger for Malgudi by R. K. Narayan Page A

during the training, he took it as an inevitable risk of his trade. Once they were trained to perform, he viewed them as his assets to be protected, his own prosperity depending on their welfare.
    He bestowed special attention to my part of the work. It always came after the trapeze sequence, which was his wife’s show. He never made any speech for introducing her - a matter which made her grumble from time to time. But he just waved her off: ‘Everyone knows what a grand team you lead, your girls are famous and need no introduction, also it’d sound odd to boost one’s wife.’
    ‘While your wit and eloquence are reserved only for the tiger and the rest, I suppose.’
    ‘Yes, they need introduction, not you. Why are we always talking like this? Something wrong with our horoscopes ...’
    ‘Your horoscope and the tiger’s seem to be better matched,’she would say.
    ‘Don’t talk in that style. Someday you will be sorry that you have disturbed my mind. You don’t realize that I need a calm mind and concentration in my work. My mood must not be spoilt...’
    ‘As if I don’t need a calm mind in my job! You think only of yourself and your tiger.’
    I don’t know why she was measuring herself against me all the time. Fancy anyone being jealous of a tiger! Yet it was not really so. Given her chance, I don’t think she would have poisoned me. She enjoyed being argumentative, that’s all. They were a peculiar couple, devoted to each other but not betraying their feelings in speech. When I mentioned this subject to my Master, later in life, and sought his verdict as to whether they were to be considered friendly or inimical to each other, he just smiled and said, ‘Human ties cannot be defined in just black-and-white terms. There can be no such thing as unmitigated hatred or unmitigated love. Those who are deeply attached sometimes deliberately present a rough exterior to each other and that is also one way of enjoying the married state. Some wives in this world show their deepest love only by nagging, and the husbands also enjoy putting on an air of being victims. You must not forget that everyone is acting a part all the time, knowingly or unknowingly. But God who sees everything must be aware of their thoughts and the secret ecstasies of companionship of even that Captain and his wife ... So don’t make the mistake of thinking that they were not properly matched, judging merely from conversation overheard.’Do you know, at the end, though his death was sudden, with the last flicker of consciousness he worried about his wife and how she was going to manage without him. Do you know what she did when she came over and saw him? She stood looking at the body without a word or a tear; and when others tried to comfort her said, ‘Leave me alone.’ After that she went back to the circus tent, climbed to the top where the swings were clamped, took out one, took a full swing up and down, and when the swing touched the ceiling, let go her hold ...
     
‘Jubilee’seemed to have become a self-explanatory word. When Captain started the publicity for his special Jubilee Show, no one questioned it, although his wife continued to taunt him. Announcements were made through colourful lithographed posters pasted on every wall in Malgudi. You could find the posters stuck side by side, starting from Albert Mission College compound wall, the first available wall when you turned townward from the circus grounds, on which was originally to be seen the bold stencilled warning, BILL STICKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Captain’s men had come back to consult him about it, and Captain advised, ‘Stick the posters well over their warning and that will make it lawful ... If we are questioned we shall send complimentary passes to the principal and professors.’He had planned to put up a few more special ringside seats to take care of all possible objectors and obstructors, from the sanitary department to the jail superintendent, who could