Greatest Short Stories by Mulk Raj Anand

from his perch. He was afraid that the old woman had expired. But as he came near her, the parrot called her more shrilly and she answered faintly,
‘Ham, han son, han’
, and the man knew that she was still alive. He lifted her up and found that her hands and arms were slightly grazed.
    ‘Come and sit in the shade, mother,’ he said. Acha, son, acha!’ she moaned.
    And she lifted the cage and proceeded towards the shade.
    The parrot was a little reassured as he saw the gram-seller helping his mistress and he shrieked less shrilly.
    ‘Come, my little winged one, I shall give you some gram to eat’, the gram seller said to him.
    ‘May you live long, son!’ the old woman blessed the gram seller in a feeble, strained moanful voice.
    ‘Rukmaniai ni Rukmaniai!
Tun kithe hain? Tun ki karni hain
…? the parrot called now in a slow measured voice.
    ‘Han han, son, han my
son… I don’t know where I am! I don’t know…’

    * From
Reflections on The Golden Bed and other Stories
.

9
    The Gold Watch *
    There was something about the smile of Mr. Acton, when he came over to Srijut Sudarshan Sharma’s table, which betokened disaster. But as the Sahib had only said, “Mr. Sharma, I have brought something for you specially from London — you must come into my office on Monday and take it…”, the poor old dispatch clerk could not surmise the real meaning of the General Manager’s remark. The fact that Mr. Acton should come over to his table at all, fawn upon him and say what he had said was, of course, most flattering. For, very rarely did the head of the firm condescend to move down the corridor where the Indian staff of the distribution department of the great Marmalade Empire of Henry King & Co., worked. But that smile on Mr. Acton’s face — specially as Mr. Acton’s face! — specially as Mr. Action was not known to smile too much, being a morose, old Sahib, hard working, conscientious and a slave driver, famous as a shrewd businessman, so devoted to the job of spreading the monopoly of King’s Marmalade, and sundry other products, that his wife had left him after a three month’s spell of marriage and never returned to India, though no one quite knew whether she was separated or divorced from him or merely preferred to stay away. So the fact that Acton Sahib should smile was enough to give Srijut Sharma cause for thought. But then Srijut Sharma was, in spite of his nobility of soul and fundamental innocence, experienced enough in his study of the vague, detached race of the white Sahibs by now and clearly noticed the slight awkward curl of the upper lip, behind which the determined, tobacco-stained long teeth showed, for the briefest moment, a snarl suppressed, by the deliberation which Acton Sahib had brought to the whole operation of coming over and pronouncing those kind words. And what could be the reason for his having being singled out, from amongst the twenty-five odd members of the distribution department? In the usual way, he, the dispatch clerk, only received an occasional greeting, “Hello Sharma — how you getting on?” from the head of his own department, Mr. West; and twice or thrice a year he was called into the cubicle by West Sahib for a reprimand, because some letters or packets had gone astray; otherwise, he himself, being the incarnation of clock-work efficiency, and well-versed in the routine of his job, there was no occasion for any break in the monotony of that anonymous, smooth working Empire, so far at least as he was concerned. To be sure, there was the continual gossip of the clerks and the accountants, the bickerings and jealousies of the people above him, for grades and promotions and pay; but he, Sharma, had been employed twenty years ago, as a special favour, was not even a matriculate, but had picked up the work somehow, and though unwanted and constantly reprimanded by West Sahib in the first few years, had been retained because of the general legend of saintliness which he