Malgudi Schooldays by R.K.Narayan

Malgudi Schooldays by R.K.Narayan

A HEROFOR SWAMINATHAN EVENTS took an unexpected turn. Father looked over the newspaper he was reading under the hall lamp and said, ‘Swami, listen to this: “News is to hand of the bravery of a village lad who, while returning home by the jungle path, came face to face with a tiger…”’ The paragraph described the fight the boy had with the tiger and his flight up a tree, where he stayed for half a day till some people came that way and killed the tiger.After reading it through, Father looked at Swami Nathan Fixedly and asked, ‘What do you say to that?’Swami Nathan said, ‘I think he must have been a very strong and grown-up person, not at all a boy. How could a boy fight a tiger?’‘You think you are wiser than the newspaper?’ Father sneered. ‘A man may have the strength of an elephant and yet be a coward: whereas another may have the strength of a straw, but if he has courage he can do anything. Courage is everything, Strength and ages are not important.’Swami disputed the theory. ‘How can it be, Father? Suppose I have all the courage, what can I do if a tiger should attack me?’‘Leave alone strength, can you prove you have courage? Let me see if you can sleep alone tonight in my office room.’A frightful proposition, Swami Nathan thought. He had always slept beside his Granny, and any change in this arrangement kept him trembling and awake all night. He hoped at first that his father was only joking. He mumbled weakly, ‘Yes,’ and tried to change the subject: he said very loudly and with a great deal of enthusiasm, ‘We are going to admit even elders in our cricket club hereafter. We are buying brand-new bats and balls. Our captain has asked me to tell you…’‘We’ll see about it later,’ Father cut in. ‘You must sleep alone hereafter.’ Swami Nathan realized that the matter had gone beyond his control: from a challenge it had become a plain command; he knew his father’s tenacity at such moments.‘From the first of next month I’ll sleep alone, Father.’‘No, you must do it now. It is disgraceful sleeping beside Granny or Mother like a baby. You are in the Second Form and I don’t at all like the way you are being brought up,’ he said, and looked at his wife, who was rocking the cradle. ‘Why do you look at me while you say it?’ she asked. ‘I hardly know anything about the boy.’‘No, no, I don’t mean you,’ Father said.‘If you mean that your mother is spoiling him, tell her so; and don’t look at me,’ she said, and turned away.Swami Nathan’s father sat gloomily gazing at the newspaper on his lap. Swami Nathan rose silently and tiptoed away to his bed in the passage. Granny was sitting up in her bed, and remarked, ‘Boy, are you already feeling sleepy? Don’t you want a story?’ Swami Nathan made wild gesticulations to silence his Granny, but that good lady saw nothing. So Swami Nathan threw himself on his bed and pulled the blanket over his face.Granny said, ‘Don’t cover your face. Are you really very sleepy?’ Swami Nathan leant over and whispered, ‘Please, please, shut up, Granny. Don’t talk to me, and don’t let anyone call me even if the house is on fire. If I don’t sleep at once I shall perhaps die-’ He turned over, curled, and snored under the blanket till he found his blanket pulled away.Presently Father came and stood over him. ‘Swami, get up,’ he said. He looked like an apparition in the semi-darkness of the passage, which was lit by a cone of light from the hall. Swami Nathan stirred and groaned as if in sleep. Father said, ‘Get up, swami.’ Granny pleaded, ‘Why do you disturb him?’‘Get up, Swami,’ he said for the third time, and Swami Nathan got up. Father rolled up his bed, took it under his arm, and said, ‘Come with me.’ Swami Nathan looked at his Granny, hesitated for a moment, and followed his father into the office room. On the way he threw a look of appeal at his mother and she said, ‘Why do you take him to the office room? He can sleep in the hall, I think.’‘I don’t think so,’ Father said, and Swami Nathan slunk behind him with bowed head.‘Let me sleep in the hall, Father,’ he pleaded. ‘Your office room is very dusty and there may be scorpions behind your law books.’‘There are no scorpions, little fellow. Sleep on the bench if you like.’‘Can I have lamp burning in the room?’‘No. You must learn not to be afraid of darkness. It is only a question of habit. You must cultivate good habits.’‘Will you at least leave the door open?’‘All right. But promise you will not roll up your bed and go to your Granny’s side at night. If you do it, mind you, I will make you the laughing-stock of your school.’Swami Nathan felt cut off from humanity. He was pained and angry. He didn’t like the strain of cruelty he saw in his father’s nature. He hated the newspaper for printing the tiger’s story. He wished that the tiger hadn’t spared the boy, who didn’t appear to be a boy after all, but a monster…As the night advanced and the silence in the house deepened, his heart beat faster. He remembered all the stories of devils and ghosts he heard in his life. How often had Mani seen the devil in the banyan tree at his street-end? And what about poor Munisami father, who spat out blood because the devil near the river’s edge slapped his cheek when he returning home late one night? And so on and on his thoughts continued. He was faint with fear. A ray of light from the street lamp strayed in and cast shadows on the wall. Through the stillness all kinds of noises reached his ears-the ticking of the clock, the rustle of trees, the sound of snoring, and some vague night insects humming. He covered himself so completely that he could hardly breathe. Every moment he expected the devils to come up to carry him away. There was the instance of his old friend in the fourth class who suddenly disappeared and was said to have been carried off by a ghost to Siam or Nepal…Swami Nathan hurriedly got up and spread his bed under the bench and crouched there. It seemed to be a much safer place, more compact and reassuring. He shut his eyes tight encased himself fell asleep, and in sleep was racked with nightmares. A tiger was chasing him. His feet stuck to the ground. He desperately tried to escape but his feet would not move; the tiger was at his back, and he could hear its claws scratch the ground… scratch, scratch, and then a light thud… Swami Nathan tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids would not open and the nightmare continued. It threatened to continue forever. Swami Nathan groaned in despair.With a desperate effort he opened his eyes. He put his hand out to feel his Granny’s presence at his side, as was his habit, but he only touched the wooden leg of the bench. And his lonely state came back to him. He sweated with fright. And now what was this rustling? He moved to the edge of the bench and stared into the darkness. Something was moving down. E lay gazing at in horror. His end had come. He realized that the devil would presently pull him out and tear him, and so why should he wait? As it came nearer he crawled out from under the bench, hugged it with all his might, and used his teeth on it like a mortal weapon…‘Aiyo! Something has bitten me,’ went forth an agonized, thundering cry and was followed by a heavy tumbling and falling amidst furniture. In a moment Father, cook, and a servant came in, carrying lights.And all three of them fell on the burglar who lay amidst the furniture with a bleeding ankle…Congratulations were showered on Swami Nathan the next day. His classmates looked at him with respect, and his teacher patted his back. The Headmaster said that he was a true scout. Swami Nathan had bitten into the flesh of one of the most notorious house-breakers of the district and the police were grateful to him for it.The Inspector said, ‘Why don’t you join the police when you grow up?’Swami Nathan said for the sake of politeness, ‘Certainly, yes,’ though he had quite made up his mind to be an engine driver, a railway guard, or a bus conductor later in life.When he returned home from the club that night, Father asked, ‘Where is the boy?’‘He is asleep.‘Already!’‘He didn’t have a wink of sleep the whole of last night,’ said his mother.‘Where is he sleeping?’‘In his usual place,’ Mother said casually. ‘He went to bed at seven-thirty.’‘Sleeping beside his Granny again!’ Father said. ‘No wonder he wanted to be asleep before I could return home-clever boy!’Mother lost her temper. ‘You let him sleep where he likes. You needn’t risk his life again…’ Father mumbled as he went in to change: ‘All right, mollycoddle and spoil him as much as you like. Only don’t blame me afterwards…’Swami Nathan, following the whole conversation from under the blanket, felt tremendously relived to hear that his father was giving up on him. THE CAPTAIN TAKES A STANDTHE CAPTAIN STERNLY disapproved of Swami Nathan’s ways. ‘Swami, I must warn you. You are neglecting the game. You are not having any practice at all.’‘It is this wretched Board School work.’‘Who asked you to go and join it? They never came and invited you. Never mind. But let me tell you. Even Bradman, Tate, and everybody spend four to five hours on the pitch every day, practicing, practicing. Do you think you are greater than they?’‘Captain, listen to me. I do my best to arrive at the field before five. But this wretched Board High School time-table is peculiar.’A way out had to be found. The captain suggested, ‘you must see your Headmaster and ask him to exempt you from extra work till the match is over.’ It was more easily said than done, and Swami Nathan said so, conjuring up before his mind a picture of the wizened face and the small dingy spectacles of his Headmaster.‘I am afraid to ask that monster, ‘Swami Nathan said. ‘He may detain me in Second Form for ages.’‘Indeed! Are you telling me that you are in such terror of your Headmaster? Suppose I see him?’‘Oh, please don’t, Captain. I beg you. You don’t know what a vicious being he is. He may not treat you well. Even if he behaves well before you, he is sure to kill me when you are gone.’‘What is the matter with you, Swami? Your Head is full of nonsense. How are we to go on? It is two months since we started the team, and you have not played even for ten days…’Mani, who had stretched himself on the compound wall, now broke in: ‘Let us see what your Headmaster can do. Let him say yes or no. If he kills you I will pulp him. My clubs have had no work for a long time.’There was no stopping Rajam. The next day he insisted that he would see the Headmaster at the school. He would not mind losing a couple of periods of his own class. Mani offered to go with him but was advised to mind his business.Next morning at nine-thirty Swami Nathan spent five minutes rubbing his eyes red, and then complained of headache. His father felt is temples and said that he would be all right if he dashed a little cold water on his forehead.‘Yes, Father,’ Swami Nathan said and went out. He stood outside Father’s room and decided that if cold water was a cure for headache he would avoid it, since he was praying for that malady just then. Rajam was coming to see the Headmaster, and it would be unwise to go to school that morning. He went in and asked, ‘Father, did you say cold water?’‘Yes.’‘But don’t you think it will give me pneumonia or something? I am also feeling feverish.’Father felt his pulse and said, ‘Now run to school and you will be all right.’ It was easier to squeeze milk out of a stone than to get permission from Father to keep away from school.He whispered into his granny’s ear, ‘Granny, even if I die, I am sure Father will insist on sending my corpse to the school.’ Granny protested vehemently against this sentiment. ‘Granny, a terrible fever is raging within me and my head is splitting with headache. But yet, I mustn’t keep way from school.’Granny said, ‘Don’t go to school.’ She then called Mother and said, ‘This child has fever. Why should he go to school?’‘Has he?’ Mother asked anxiously, and fussed over him. She felt his body and said that he certainly had a temperature. Swami Nathan said pathetically, ‘Give me milk or something, Mother. It is getting late for school.’ Mother vetoed this virtuous proposal. Swami Nathan faintly said, ‘But Father may not like it.’ She asked him to lie down on a bed and hurried along to Father’s room. She stepped into the room with the declaration, ‘Swami has fever, and he can’t go to school.’‘Did you take his temperature?’‘Not yet. It doesn’t matter if he misses school for a day.’‘Anyway, take his temperature,’ he said. He feared that his wife might detect the sarcasm in his suggestion, and added as a palliative, ‘so that we may know whether a doctor is necessary.’A thermometer stuck out of Swami Nathan’s mouth for half a minute and indicated normal. Mother looked at it and thrust it back into his mouth. It again showed normal. She took it to Father, and he said, ‘Well, It is normal,’ itching to add, ‘I knew it.’ Mother insisted, ‘Something has gone wrong with the thermometer. The boy has fever. There is no better thermometer than my hand. I can swear that he has 100.2 now.’‘Quite likely,’ Father said.And Swami Nathan, when he ought to have been at school, was lying peacefully, with closed eyes, on his bed. He heard a footstep near his bed and opened his eyes. Father stood over him and said in an undertone, ‘You are a lucky fellow. What a lot of champions you have in this house when you don’t want to go to school!’ Swami Nathan felt that this was a sudden and unprovoked attack from behind. He shut his eyes and turned towards the wall with a feeble groan.By the afternoon he was already bedsore. He dreaded the prospect of staying in bed through the evening. Moreover, Rajam would have already come to the school in the morning and gone.He went to his mother and informed her that he was starting for the school. There was a violent protest at once. She felt him all over and said that he was certainly better but in no condition to go to school. Swami Nathan said, ‘I am feeling quite fit, Mother. Don’t get fussy.’On the way to school-he met Rajam and Mani. Mani had his club under his arm. Swami Nathan feared that these two had done something serious. Rajam said, ‘You are a fine fellow! Where were you this morning?’‘Did you see the Headmaster, Rajam?’‘Not yet. I found that you had not come, and did not see him. I want you to be with me when I see him. After all it is your business.’When Swami Nathan emerged from the emotional chaos which followed Rajam’s words, he asked, ‘What is Mani doing here?’‘I don’t know,’ Rajam said. ‘I found him outside your school with his club, when he ought to have been in his class.’‘Mani, what about your class?’‘It is all right, ‘Mani replied, ‘I didn’t attend it today.’‘And why your club?’ Swami Nathan asked.‘Oh! I simply brought it along.’Rajam asked, ‘Weren’t you told yesterday to attend your class and mind your business?’‘I don’t remember. You asked me to mind my business only when I offered to accompany you. I am not accompanying you. I just came this way, and you have also come this way. This is a public road. ‘Mani’s jest was lost on them. Their minds were too busy with plans for the impending interview.‘Don’t worry, young men,’ Mani said. ‘I shall see you through your troubles. I will talk to the Headmaster, if You like.’‘If you step into his room, he will call the police,’ Swami Nathan said.When they reached the school, Mani was asked to go away, or at worst wait on the road. Rajam went in, and Swami Nathan was compelled to accompany him to the Headmaster’s room.The Headmaster was sleeping with his head between his hands and his elbows resting on the table. It was a small stuffy room with only one window opening on the weather beaten side-wall of a shop; it was cluttered with dust-laden rolls of maps, globes, and geometrical squares. The Headmaster’s white cane lay on the table across two ink-bottles and some pads. The sun came in a hot dusty beam and fell on the Headmaster’s nose and the table. He was gently snoring. This was a possibility that Rajam had not thought of.‘What shall we do?’ Swami Nathan asked in a rasping whisper. ‘Wait,’ Rajam ordered.They waited for ten minutes and then began to make gentle noises with their feet. The Headmaster opened his eyes and without taking his head from his hands, kept staring at them vacantly, without showing any sign of recognition. He rubbed his eyes, raised his eyebrows three times, yawned, and asked in a voice thick with sleep, ‘Have you fellows no class?’ He fumbled for his spectacles and put them on. Now the picture was complete-wizened face and dingy spectacles calculated to strike into the hearts of Swami Nathan’s.He asked again, ‘To what class do you fellows belong? Have you no class?’‘I don’t belong to your school,’ Rajam said defiantly.‘Ah, then which heaven do you drop from?’Rajam said, ‘I am the captain of the MCC and have come to see you on business.’‘What is that?’‘This is my friend W.S. Swami Nathan of Second C studying in your school…’‘I am honoured to meet you,’ said the Headmaster turning to Swami Nathan. Rajam felt at that moment that he had found out where the Board High School got its reputation from.‘I am the captain of the MCC.’‘Equally honoured…’‘He is in my team. He is a good bowler…’‘Are you?’ said the Headmaster, turning to Swami Nathan.‘May I come to the point?’ Rajam asked.‘Do, do,’ said the Headmaster, ‘for heaven’s sake, do.’‘It is this,’ Rajam said, ‘he is a good bowler and he needs some practice. He can’t come to the field early enough because he is kept in the school every day after four-thirty.’‘What do you want me to do?’‘Sir, can’t you permit him to go home after four-thirty?’The Headmaster sank back in his chair and remained silent.Rajam asked again, ‘what do you say, sir, won’t you do it?’‘Are you the Headmaster of this school or am I?’‘Of course you are the Headmaster, sir. In Albert Mission they don’t keep us a minute longer than four-thirty. And we are exempted from Drill if we play games.’‘Here, I am not prepared to listen to your rhapsodies on that pariah school. Get out.’Mani, who had been waiting outside, finding his friends gone too long, and having his own fears, now came into the Headmaster’s room.‘Who is this?’ asked the Headmaster, looking at Mani sourly. ‘What do you want?’‘Nothing,’ Mani replied and quietly stood in a corner. ‘I can’t understand why every fellow who finds nothing to do comes and stands in my room.’‘I am the Police Superintendent’s son,’ Rajam said abruptly.‘Is that so? Find out from your father what he was doing on the day a gang of little rascals came in and smashed these windows…what is the thing that fellow has in his hand?’‘My wooden club,’ Mani answered.Rajam added, ‘He breaks skulls with it .Come out, Mani, come on, Swami. There is nothing doing with this- this madcap.’BEFORE THE MATCHTHE MCC’S CHALLENGE to a ‘friendly’ match was accepted by the Young Men’s Union, who kept themselves in form with indefatigable practice on thee vacant site behind the Reading Room, or when the owner of this site objected, right in the middle of Kulam Street. The match was friendly in nought but name. The challenge sent by the MCC was couched in terms of defiance and threat.There were some terrifying conditions attached to the challenge. The first condition was that the players should be in the field promptly at eleven noon. The second was that they should carry their own bats, while the stumps would be graciously supplied by the MCC. The third was not so much a plain condition as a firm hint that they would do well to bring and keep in stock a couple of their own balls. The reason for this was given in the pity statement ‘that your batsmen might hit your own balls and not break ours’. The next was the inhospitable suggestion that they had better look out for themselves in regard to lunch, if they cared to have any at all. The last condition was perhaps the most complicated of the lot, over which some argument and negotiation ensured: ‘you shall pay for breaking bats, balls, wickets and other damages.’The YMU captain was rather puzzled by this. He felt that it was irrelevant in view of the fact that there were conditions 2 and 3, and if they broke any bats and balls at all, it would be their own property, and the MCC’s anxiety to have the damage made good was unwarranted. He was told that the stumps belonged to the MCC anyway, and there was also the YMU’s overlooking clauses 2 and 3. At which the YMU captain became extremely indignant and asked why if the MCC was so impoverished, it should not come and play in their (YMU’s) own pitch and save them the trouble of carrying their team about. The stinging rejoinder occurred to the indignant Rajam exactly twenty minutes after the other captain had left, that it could not be done as the MCC did not think much of a match played in the middle of Kulam Street, if the owner of the vacant site behind the Reading Room should take it into head to object to the match. Before he left, the YMU captain demanded to be told what ‘other damages’ in the last clause meant. Rajam paused, looked about, and pointed to the windows and tiles of a house adjoining the MCC field.The match was to be played on Sunday two weeks later. Rajam lost all peace of mind. He felt confident that his team could thrash the YMU. He himself could be depended upon not to let the team down. Mani was steady if unimpressive. He could be depended upon to stop with his head, if necessary, any ball. His batting was not bad. He had a peculiar style. With his bat he stopped all reasonable to the wicket and brought the best bowlers to a fainting condition. Rajam did not consider it worthwhile to think of the other players of the team. There was only one player who caused him the deepest anxiety day and night. He was a dark horse. On him rested a grant task, a mighty responsibility. He was the Tate of the team, and he must bowl out all the eleven of the other team. But he looked uncertain. Even with the match only a fortnight off, he did not seem to care for practice. He stuck to his old habit of arriving at the field when darkness had fallen on the earth. ‘Swami,’ Rajam pleaded, ‘please do try to have at least am hour’s practice in the evenings.’‘Certainly Rajam, if you can suggest a way…’‘Why not tell your Headmaster that…’‘Oh, no, no,’ Swami Nathan cried, ‘I am grateful to you for your suggestion. But let us not think of that man. He has not forgotten your last visit yet.’‘I don’t care. What I want is that you should have good practice. If you keep any batsman standing for more than five minutes, I will never see your face again. You needn’t concern yourself with the score. You can leave it to us…’***Just seven days before the match, Swami Nathan realized that his evening were more precious than ever. As soon as the evening bell rang, he lined up with the rest in the drill ground. But contrary to the custom, he had not taken off his coat and cap. All the others were in their shirts, with their dhotis tucked up. The Drill master, a square man with a protruding chest, a big moustache sharpened at the ends, and a silk turban wound in military style, stood as if he posed before a camera, and surveyed his pupils with a disdainful side-glance. The monitor called out the names from the greasy register placed on the vaulting horse. The attendance after an interminable time was over and the Drill master gave up his pose, came near the file, and walked from one end to the other, surveying each boy sternly. Swami Nathan being short came towards the end of the file. The Drill master stopped before him, looked him up and down, and passed on muttering: ‘You won’t get leave. Coat and cap off.’ Swami Nathan became desperate and pursued him: ‘Sir, I am in a terrible state of health. I can’t attend drill today. I shall die if I do. Sir, I think I shall-’ He was prancing behind the Drill master.The Drill master had come to the last boy and yet Swami Nathan was dogging him. He turned round on Swami Nathan with a fierce oath: ‘What is the matter with you?’‘Sir, you don’t understand my troubles. You don’t even care to ask me what I am suffering from.’‘Yes, yes what exactly is ailing you now?’Swami Nathan had at first thought of complaining of headache, but now he saw that the Drill master was in a mood to slight even the most serious of headaches. He had an inspiration and said: ‘Sir, the whole of last night I was delirious.’ The Drill master was stunned by this piece of news. ‘You were delirious! Are you mad?’‘No, Sir. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I was delirious. Our doctor said so. He has asked me not to attend drill for a week to come. He said that I should die if I attended drill.’‘Get away, young swine, before I am tempted to throttle you. I don’t believe a word. But you are a persevering swine. Get out.’The intervening period, about half an hour, between leaving the drill ground and reaching the cricket field, was a blur of hurry and breathlessness. Everybody at the field was happy to see him so early. Rajam jumped with joy.On the whole everything was satisfactory. The only unpleasant element in all this was an obsession that the Drill master might spy him out. So that, when they dispersed for the evening, Swami Nathan stayed in Rajam’s house till it was completely dark, and then skulked home, carefully avoiding the lights falling on the street from shop-fronts.The next morning he formed a plan to be free all the evening of the week. He was at his desk with the Manual of Grammar open before him. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and he had still two and a half hours before him for the school.He did a little cautious reconnoitering: Mother was in the baby’s room, for the rhythmic creaking of the cradle came to his ears. Father’s voice was coming from the front room; he was busy with his clients. Swami Nathan quietly slipped out of the house.He stood before a shop in front of which hung the board: ‘Doctor T.Kesavan, L.M & S. Sri Krishna Dispensary.’ The doctor was sitting at a long table facing the street. Swami Nathan found that the doctor was alone and free, and entered the shop.‘Hallo, Swami Nathan, what is the matter?’‘Nothing, Sir. I have come on a little business.’‘All well at home?’‘Quite. Doctor, I have got to have a doctor’s certificate immediately.’‘What is the matter with you?’‘I will tell you the truth, Doctor. I have to play a match next week against the Young Men’s Union. And I must have some practice. And yet every evening there is Drill class, Scouting, some dirty period or the other. If you could give me a certificate asking them to let me off at four-thirty, it would help the MCC to win the match.’‘Well, I could do it. But is there anything wrong with you?’Swami Nathan took half a second to find an answer: ‘Certainly, I am beginning to feel of late that I have delirium.’‘What did you say?’ asked the doctor anxiously.Swami Nathan was pleased to find the doctor so much impressed, and repeated that he was having the most violent type of delirium.‘Boy, did you say delirium? What exactly do you mean by delirium?’Swami Nathan did not consider it the correct time for cross-examination. But he had to have the doctor’s favour. He answered: ‘I have got it. I can’t say exactly. But isn’t it some, some kind of stomach-ache?’The doctor laughed till a great fit of coughing threatened to choke him. After that he looked Swami Nathan under the eye, examined his tongue, tapped his chest, and declared him to be in the pink of health, and told him he would do well to stick to his drill if he wanted to get rid of delirium. Swami Nathan again explained to him how important it was for him to have his evening free. But the doctor said: ‘It is all very well. But I should be prosecuted if I gave you any such certificate.’‘Who is going to find it out, Doctor? Do you want our MCC to lose the match?’‘I wish you all success. Don’t worry. I can’t give you a certificate. But I shall talk to you Headmaster about you and request him to let you off after four-thirty.’‘That will do. You are very kind to me, Doctor.’***At four-thirty that evening, without so much as thinking of the Scouting class in the quadrangle of the school, Swami Nathan went home and then to the cricket field. Next day he had Drill class, and he did not give it a thought. He was having plenty of practice. Rajam said: ‘Swami, you are wonderful! All that you needed was a little practice. What have you done about your evening classes?’‘It is a slight brain-work, my boy. Our doctor has told the headmaster that I should die if I stayed in school after four-thirty. I got him to do it. What do you think of it?’Mani dug him in the ribs and cried: ‘You are the brainiest fellow I have ever seen. ‘Rajam agreed with him, and then was suddenly seized with worry: ‘oh, I don’t know if we shall win that match. I will die if we lose.’Mani said: ‘Here, Rajam, I am sick of your talks of defeat. Do you think those monkey-faced fools can stand up to us?’‘I shall write to the papers if we win,’ said Rajam.‘Will they print our photos?’ Tate asked.‘Without doubt.’