Six-Anna Ticket

1

That day, when I reached the office, I found a gentleman sitting on my chair.

This gentleman – who was humming a tune like a rusty hinge – had placed both his legs on my desk and was scribbling an occasional line or two on my letter pad that was perched on his thighs. It would not be inappropriate to note here that I had this letter pad printed in three colours – and each page had cost me two-and-a-half paise!

He was a plump man of around average height, his face chubby, bumpy and ugly. He had a half-grown, well-trimmed moustache. His eyes were like a cat’s. His ponytail swayed merrily in the breeze from the electric fan, a tell-tale sign that this gentleman was having a good time here. He wore a khadi kurta and dhoti.

I sat on a chair beside the desk, thinking he was probably a visitor to one of the office employees, and started shuffling through letters received in the morning mail.

Suddenly, his gaze turned toward me – I must have appeared somewhat shrunken and subdued at the time, reading a special issue of a magazine that was notifying Hindi citizens that I was a pompous, arrogant, deceitful and moronic man. He studied me intently for a while. Maybe my hunched pose struck a chord of sympathy with him.

Smiling slightly, he asked, ‘Do you work in this office?’

Extremely politely, I replied, ‘Indeed, sir.’

He asked again, ‘And at what time does editor Kishorji arrive?’

‘His timings are not fixed as such … umm … do you want to meet him by any chance?’ I inquired.

‘Yes. I’m here to see him only. I’ve just arrived from Howrah station. My luggage is right here. You see we share a special bond of friendship. So I thought that I should meet him … and here I am. Where does he stay?’

Indeed, his trunk and bedding were piled precariously in front of him! Seeing his luggage in my office made me nervous, but I was completely thrown when he asked for my home address. ‘Well, he is known to live some ten miles away, but probably he is not here these days. Word is that he may return in a week.’

‘Oh, he’s not here, eh? Well, at least the office is. One week is not a long time really, I’ll wait here.’

This attack went amiss. Just as I was trying to strategise the next line of attack, my colleague Shriram walked in. Upon entering he said, ‘Namaste Kishorji. I’m a bit late today, forgive me.’

Hearing these words, the man practically leapt out of my chair. With the utmost respect and folded hands, he exclaimed, ‘Ahaaa, so you are Kishorji! How much have you jested with me! You must be knowing me, I’m Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh! Yours truly, who had sent you six poems to which you had reverted ‘Lost them’, to which I sent back twelve poems and you responded ‘Blown away in a freak storm,’ and when I’d sent you eighteen, you replied ‘They so moved the compositor to whom I had given your poems for composition, that he renounced all his worldly possessions and became a monk. He took only your poems with him.’ Therefore, here I am in person, with twenty-four of my poems at your service.’

Now I too was compelled to show some warmth of hospitality. Mustering a smile I crooned ‘Ohooo, so you are Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh! Welcome to this humble abode. I’m blessed to have you here.’ Then I turned to my colleague and said, ‘Shriramji, please make arrangements for this gentleman’s stay at Cheddilal’s Dharamshala, the room must be good. And…’

But before I could finish my sentence, my guest stopped me. ‘I never like to lodge at a Dharamshala, for scoundrels and thieves breed there. I’ll stay in the guest room of this office itself. That way, you’ll be able to avail the full benefit of my services.’

My office had exactly one guest room – and God only knows how Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan had gotten wind of this information. I was left speechless.

2

Four mornings later, when I woke up, I was greatly astonished to see Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh, plopped on my verandah chair. His bedding and trunk were laid out before him. As soon as he saw me, he promptly stood up. Greeting me with a smile he said, ‘Last night I decided that I couldn’t establish a complete connection with you, as you are busy in the office throughout the day. I won’t even have a chance to listen to your honeyed voice. Therefore, it would only be appropriate for me to stay here, at your house with you. Also, bazaar food is not agreeing with me. At your place, I’ll get home-cooked meals.’

My greatest weakness is that I’m a benevolent being who is terrible at saying ‘no’. So it came to pass that Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh settled down as my personal guest. Each morning, he’d drink tea with me, have food with me and travel to my office with me. I had to cover his tram fare because he’d start looking at me fixedly when the conductor approached us.

One day, upon reaching the office, he said to me, ‘Kishorji, I was thinking of doing some sightseeing in Calcutta today.’

‘What a pleasant thought,’ I attested.

‘Kindly hand me your tram ticket,’ he insisted.

‘It’s under my name. You’ll get caught!’ I protested.

‘Wow! Everyone in your office uses it routinely, do I look like an idiot who’ll get caught?’ And, he took away my tram ticket. I had to pay my men the tram fare to ride the tram that day. When I tallied my finances in the evening, I discovered that I had incurred a loss of ten annas.

The next day when he asked me for the tram ticket again, I replied with a practiced, ‘I’m deeply saddened to say that my tram ticket has been taken from me by a friend.’

Heaving a sigh, he said, ‘Never mind, I’ll just wait for him here. I’ll leave when he returns.’

And that entire day, to cover up for my lie, I had to send my men on errands by paying their tram fares. My pocket got twelve annas lighter as a consequence.

On the third day, when he asked me for the tram ticket again, I made the same excuse. But I had deliberated a scheme by then. Whenever someone from my staff would leave the office, I’d slip out with them and privately give them my tram ticket, telling them to call for me and return the ticket privately as well. This became my daily ritual.

Sipping tea with me on Sunday, Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh told me, ‘Kishorji, today is your holiday. Today you must take me around Calcutta!’

I was somewhat unnerved. ‘Regretfully, I will be deprived of being of service to you today as I need to go and meet several people,’ I said, and called out to my servant Bhikhu. ‘Take Babuji on a grand tour of the city today! Buy two six-anna tickets for the whole day.’ I tossed one rupee at Bhikhu.

Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan spoke. ‘No, bring one ticket. I’ll travel on my own only.’ And Bhikhu handed the six-anna ticket to him.

That morning, he drank such copious amounts of tea, that I was left stumped. Four toasts and several dollops of butter plus puris with four ripe mangoes for breakfast! Following this, he set out on his pilgrimage with the six-anna ticket in his pocket. As he left, he said, ‘Do not wait for me at lunchtime, I’ll come back at night and have dinner.’

My entire day was taken up with work. I returned home at around eleven and felt a strange silence surround me. The servants were all there but there was no one to greet me with reverence, no one to bombard me with questions, no one to fill my head with the strangest doubts, and no one to take away the peace and happiness from my lonely life. My guest Shri Ramkhelavan Sharanji had not returned yet.

The servant brought me my dinner, but I couldn’t eat it. For some unknown reason, I was starting to worry about my guest. Calcutta is not a very nice city and Shri Ramkhelavan had taken the tiny ship of his life out into the vast ocean of the city. I was concerned that he had fallen under a double-decker bus or lost his way in a dubious alley. Or had someone stuffed him in a sack and carried him off?

I didn’t even sleep well. I tossed and turned in bed. I was surprised to discover such a reservoir of affection within me for Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan.

Suddenly, the telephone’s shrill ringing pierced the quiet. I got up and glanced at the clock. It was three. With a pounding heart and trembling hands, I picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Calling from the Bhawanipur police station,’ a voice said. ‘Do you have a Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh staying at your place?’

My face turned pale. ‘Is everything ok? He’s alive, right?’ I asked nervously. I heard a ring of laughter.

‘Yes, he’s fine of course, but completely drunk. It’s been half an hour since we brought him in. Come and take him away!’

I put down the receiver. It felt like I’d fallen from the sky, or the sky had fallen on me. So our Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh was such an ‘illustrious’ man, such a ‘gentleman and a poet’! My entire belief system was tattered to bits. I wanted the earth to implode and consume me. If a man like Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh could drink, and drink to the point of getting handcuffed and tossed in jail, then living in abstinence only meant that my life was utterly pointless.

Anyway, duty called, so I went to the police station to collect my guest from jail. I bailed out Ramkhelavan Sharan with a sum of five rupees, and brought him home.

When we got home, Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan guzzled a glass of water and squatted down holding his head with both hands. Fat teardrops rolled down his eyes as he sat like a monumental weeping statue, immobile and silent, neither moving nor muttering, neither pacing nor prattling.

Finally, I had to initiate the conversation. ‘Ramkhelavan Sharanji, what possessed you to drink and stagger around in the streets?’

Just as I asked this question, Shri Ramkhelavan burst out in a pool of tears. ‘I swear that I have not committed the atrocious sin of alcoholism. Those villainous policemen forcibly detained me.’

‘Why so?’ I asked.

‘Such is my misfortune. I don’t have any life left in me, I’m so exhausted. Today, I nearly got killed over a six-anna ticket.’

‘How is that?’ I asked, showing some degree of sympathy. But I had more suspense than sympathy building inside me.

‘See Kishorji, you had already given me a six-anna ticket. As I was setting out to tour Calcutta, I kept an extra two annas with me, in case of need. So off I went. I wanted to go as far as the tram would take me and return back on the same tram. I went to Tollygunge, went to Ballygunge, went to Behala, went to Khiddirpore, went to Park-Circus, went to Sealdah and Rajabazar, went to Shyambazar, went to Baghbazar, went to Dalhousie, went to High Court, went to Bau Bazar, went to Harrison Road and even got to Neemtala. In the evening, when I felt slightly hungry, I traded my two annas for a hearty snack.’

‘Now around ten o’clock, I disembarked at the intersection of Harrison Road and Chitpur Road. I calculated that on a six anna–ticket, I had journeyed for one rupee and twelve annas. I needed an extra two annas for the trip home, leading to a total trip amount of one rupee and fourteen annas. As per my initial calculations, I wanted to travel for one and a half rupees on a six-anna ticket. That’s why I should’ve contented myself and returned home at the time. But it seemed like a demon possessed me when it crossed my mind that eight, not six annas had been spent, as the two annas worth of snacks were consumed in the process of travelling only. By that logic, for eight annas I should have travelled in the tram for nothing short of two rupees.’

‘Just as this thought transpired, I spotted a tram with ‘Belgachia’ written on it. It occurred to me that I had not been to Belgachia yet! So I hopped on that tram. Upon reaching Belgachia, I remained seated in the hope that the tram would return. But a man approached me and said, ‘Now you leave.’

‘I said, ‘I want to go to Dharamtala!’

‘He pointed towards the clock and said, ‘Look here mister. You see the time. It’s eleven o’clock now. No tram will depart at this ungodly hour.’

‘Kishorji, I was completely rattled. I said, ‘What? Will no tram leave from here now?’

‘He shot back, ‘Didn’t I say ‘no’? You’ll get a bus now, so catch it and go.’

‘I stood up. But I did not have a single aana in my pocket, so how could I take a bus? I asked the man, ‘How far is Dharamtala from here?’

‘He answered, ‘About five miles!’

‘And Kishorji, I embarked for Dharamtala on foot. I reached Dharamtala by around twelve-thirty, badly worn out. Even there I couldn’t find a single tram! So I had to trudge back from there too on foot. I reached that big junction sometime around one-thirty. Kishorji, just imagine, I had walked nine miles, having not eaten the whole day. I was parched. My legs were wobbling, my eyes were popping. And at that moment, a policeman appeared and asked me, ‘Who are you?’

‘I was so uncontrolled, almost unconscious, that no words came out of my mouth, and even if I did say something, it would have been absolute gibberish. Soon, another policeman arrived. He asked the first what the matter was. The first replied, ‘It is evident that this here gentleman is drunk. He can’t walk straight, talk straight, has gone completely senseless in his inebriation.’ And the other said, ‘So then let’s take him to the police station, see how he regains consciousness by morning.’

‘I tried to explain my situation to them, but either I couldn’t make them understand, or else they couldn’t understand me.’

‘Ohooo, so that’s the story!’ I said smiling. I called the servant to bring food. He started to eat and I said, ‘You’ve had quite an ordeal here. Now my advice to you is that you head back home tomorrow morning itself, for you did not leave there at an auspicious time.’

Chewing on his food, he said, ‘You are right Kishorji. But my uncle’s father-in-law’s brother-in-law, who is a ticket collector and brought me to Calcutta free, said that he would take me along when he returned. Which will be in about fifteen days. It’s been twelve days already; he will be here in two or three days, and then I will take your leave.’

It has been nearly twelve days since this incident and my house still remains occupied by him, since Shri Ramkhelavan Sharan Narayanprasad Singh’s uncle’s father-in-law’s brother-in-law has not returned yet.