Text of The Only American from our Village

The Only American from our Village

Arun Joshi

This short story, written in English, describes what happens when Dr Khanna, an Indian scientist who has settled in America, returns to India for a visit. The court paper sold by the ashtamp farosh who tells the story of what happened to Dr Khanna's father is special stamped paper on which certain legal documents are required to be written.

Dr Khanna was easily the most outstanding immigrant physicist at the University of Wisconsin. Personally, he considered himself to be the finest of all physicists, immigrant or native. He was also among the dozen or so best-dressed men on the campus.

   When he was forty Dr Khanna, his wife Joanne, and their two sons decided to visit India, the country that Dr Khanna had left fifteen years earlier and where his fame had preceded him.

   The four week trip was a success by all accounts. He was received by an official of the Council of Scientific Research. He addressed a conference on Interplanetary radiation and inaugur­ated three well-attended seminars. He met the President and the Prime Minister. He was offered many jobs each of which he politely declined.

   His wife and children were worshipped by his relatives whom they had never met before and for whom they had brought Gillette razors, pop records, and a mass of one-dollar neck-ties. The records and the neck-ties were unusable because the relatives had neither record-players nor suits but the razors were greatly prized, especially by the women who saved them for their teenaged sons.

    The last of the four weeks Mrs Khanna and the children went off on a sightseeing tour. Dr Khanna delivered his final talk at a college in his former home-town.

   The talk went well. He was introduced to the audience in glorious terms and the boys stayed quiet which was not natural for them. He was thanked profusely and, it seemed, endlessly by the lecturer in Physics. Some of the audience stopped by on their way out and hid their humble farewell with folded hands. At the end of them all an old man came shuffling along and insisted on shaking Dr Khanna's hands.

   'I am the ashtamp farosh of the town,' the old man said, staring up at Dr Kanna, His eyes were heavy with cataract. The grease on his jacket shone in the yellow light. Dr Khanna looked on,  puzzled. The Principal was embarrassed.

   ‘Mr Radhey Mohan’, he explained, 'sells court paper in front of the District Courts.'

'Yes,' the old man repeated. 'I am the ashtamp farosh of the town. I knew your father. I am very happy to see you. I came here only to see you bccause I am only an ashtamp farosh and do not understand such matters. Nor do my sons because they are not even matriculates. I have not been out of this town. I live in the village which was also your father's village and is, therefore your village. Ha! Ha! I can take you there if you like.'

   'I had been to our village when I was a boy,' said Dr Khanna hastily. He was glad he could say that because some trick of the old man, a slant of the lips, a glint in the eye, the accent, which had also been his father's, had made him uncomfortable. 'I have been to our village several times,' he repeated.

   'I know. When you came with your father, you always came to my house because your father and I were very close to each other, like brothers, and I was not then the ashtamp farosh because I had property and I did not have to be an ashtamp farosh and I lived in style. Of course, all this does not interest you. I know that.'

   There was a pause. The Principal who had been trying to put an end to this unexpected encounter edged Dr Khanna towards the door. The ashtamp farosh put his hand on Dr Khanna's shoulder and began again. Darkness gathered on the grounds outside.

   'He was a good student, the best. I sat at the same desk, so I know. I carved my name on my side of the desk, Your father did not want to spoil the wood so I carved his name on his side. Before he died we went and looked for the desk and, believe me, it was still there. So were the names, It was very strange, I had not expected the names to be there. Your father's name is on the Honours Board, too. Mine is not there, because I failed in matriculation. But his name is there. If you like we can go and have a look. He stood third in the state. Maybe you don't know it. Standing third in thirty thousand boys was no joke. He won a scholarship as he always did.He wanted to take up a job but his mother said he must go to college. So he went to Lahore. I am told he made a mark there. But I don't know. I saw him only when he came home for vacation. If he had made a mark he did not let it get to his head. He was always the same with me. I wanted to know about the dancing girls of Lahore but he did not know about such things. But he had brains. Even I could see that. I met him every summer, several summers running. Then he took a job somewhere. In Lucknow or Kanpur or Alla­habad - I don't know. You must know better. I saw him when his mother died. He cried a lot. Then he locked up the old house and went away. I did not see much of him for twenty years. Only once or twice when he brought you and your sisters to see the village. He came back after he retired. He looked old, older than his years, but he was happy. He was very proud of you, He told everyone what all you had done. He got angry with me because I was not interested in what you had done. He used to say you would be a big government man when you came back. He would say you were coming back in one year, in two years, any time. Then you got married and he was quiet for many months. But he started talking again. He said you were the only American from our village. I asked him once what was so great about being the only American from our village. He said it was an honour.  

   'Some of us used to go for walks. He talked all the time. And he talked only of you. We got fed up with his talk, to tell you the truth. We had a foot in the grave, all of us. What did we care for your achievements; what you did and what you did not do. I told him so one day. He was angry with me. I suppose I should not have said that. He stopped coming with us. He did not go for walks for a while, then he started to go by himself. He chose different timings and took a different route. But I would see him now and then. He had a sloop. You are developing a stoop similar to his, if you don't mind my saying so.'

   The ashtamp farosh paused. He seemed to have lost the thread of his thoughts. Then he started again. 'After his retirement he had a shave every other day. We used to go together, to the same barber. He would have his shave first because he did not like to wait. But he had to wait anyway while I had my shave. It came to the same thing. But he did not mind that. Some people are strange.

   'Then, all at once, he started to shave every day. He also had two shirts made. Two new shirts and a suit. He said it was too costly to have a shave every day in the bazaar, so he bought his own razor. A razor and a cake of soap. I asked him what on earth had got into him? Why in God's name did he have to shave every day. He took me aside and said he was expecting a ticket. What ticket? I asked him. He said he was expecting a ticket from you to visit America. A return ticket. He looked at me when he said that his eyes twinkled.'

   The ashtamp farosh fidgeted inside his pockets for several moments and pulled out a bidi. He did not light it.

   'To tell you the truth I was impressed. Kundan Da1 going to America, that was not something you could laugh away. I told some fellows about the ticket and before morning the whole vi1lage knew about it.

   'You see what I mean? Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't have villages like ours in America but you must try to understand what it meant after the whole village knew you were going to send him a ticket. Did you send him a ticket?'

   The question took Dr Khanna by surprise. He looked confused. He said: 'I could not, I did not ...'

   'I thought as much,' said the ashtamp farosh, cutting him short. 'Then he did another foolish thing: he turned religious. All his live I had never seen him inside a temple and now he went there every evening. Morning and evening. And that wasn't all. He started even to sing, the old fool. What did he know about singing? Yet he would stand with all those old women and sing, like a donkey, if you don't mind my saying so. I say this only because it hurt me to see him making a fool of himself. I caught hold of him in the street one day and I told him what I thought of him. What do you expect from God, I asked him. Your son? A letter from your son? A ticket? What? Why was he cutting himself off from the rest of us, I asked him. If you were doing well, as he said, what was eating him. Why was he cutting himself of from his friends? I thought he would be angry. But he wasn't. He just stood there in the middle of the street and looked at me, looked right through me as though I were air. Then he went off muttering to himself. I saw him many times alter that but I did not speak to him again. I did not want trouble, to tell you the truth. Then he fell ill.'

   The ashtamp farosh lit his bidi, took a deep pull and, on an impulse, threw it away. Dr Khanna could see it smouldering in the verandah. The smoke nauseated him. Outside, it was totally dark. The winter night had set in. Why did you not send him the ticket?’ the ashtamp farosh asked suddenly. Once again Dr Khanna was taken by surprise. 'I could not,' he said. 'I did not have the money'

   The ashtamp farosh looked at him, puzzled, but he said nothing. 'Nor did your father have the money. So he stayed home and became quiet once again.'

   The ashtamp farosh fell silent. His expressions became vague. He let his hands drop into his pockets where they fidgeted with a variety of objects.

   'Of course he had never had much money. He had a scholarship in school that paid for his fees. But he had only two pyjamas and two kurtas and he had no shoes. We went to school together and came back together. Between the school and our village is the cho. Do you remember the cho? It runs in the rains. Nine months it is dry. In summer the sand gets very hot. Have you seen how they roast corn in hot sand. You could roast corn in the cho. It was half a mile of boiling sand in May that we had to cross. No more, no less. And your father had no shoes. So he would stop this end of the cho and take a handful of dhak leaves and tie them on his naked feet with a string and he would cross the sand. And if the string came off he would jump around screaming on one foot while I tied the leaves back on to his foot. That is how your father crossed the cho for ten years, Dr Khanna,' said the ashtamp farosh.

   His tone was not harsh. He was not even looking at him but somehow Dr Khanna had the unreasonable feeling that the old man was going to slap him. He wanted to get away and he looked helplessly al the Principal but the ashtamp farosh stood between them and the doorway. He had begun to talk again, in a softer voice, as though to himself. 'I told him not to do it. I told him he was being stupid.'

   After another silence he addressed them again, 'When he fell ill your sister came. He asked me to write to you, I sent you a telegram. It cost me one hundred rupees but you chose to reply only by a letter. I did not understand what you said except that you had to attend some conference. I told your father you had a conference. ‘Does he say when he can come?" he asked. I told him you had not said when you could come. 'He must he husy," he said. He did not mention you again. He got better. One day he said, "Radhey, let us go and look at our old desk." It was the month of May and it was very hot but he was feeling better and I thought a trip to town will do him good. We went in a rickshaw. And the desk was where it had always been. The same room, the same row, the same place. There were his initials on his side and mine on mine. We went to the Honours Board and had a look at his name. We started hack and came to the cho. Then the mad thought entered his head. It was madness. No more, no less. There are no words to describe such madness, He even looked mad to me. He stopped the rickshaw before the cho. He got off and kicked away his shoes and started plucking at the leaves of dhak. He could not tie them because he had arthritis and he could not bend. "Tie these on my feet, Radhey," he ordered me. "You are mad, Kundan Lal," I told him, but he had a bad look on his face and I knew it was no use arguing with him. I thought he would come to his senses when he touched the boiling sand. But I told you he wasn't himself. He stepped into the cho. I followed him carrying his shoes hoping he would stop, shouting at him to stop. I could feel the sand through my soles but told you he had lost his head. He walked the whole half mile. The leaves fell off on the way. God himself could not have stopped him. He had fever by the time he got home. The next day he died.'

   Dr Kanna winced but his training in the new civilization had been perfect.

   'I was very sorry to hear of his death,' he said calmly.

   'We must go now, Radhey Mohanji,' said the Principal. He stretched his hand but the ashtamp farosh was gone, shuffling through the dark, a bidi in his mouth.

   That weekend Dr Khanna and family boarded a plane for Chicago. At Chicago they changed. As the plane for Madison got aloft Mrs Joanne Khanna was heard to say to her husband, 'What's the matter, darling, you keep staring at your feet. I have been watching you for the last two days and you’ve done nothing but stare at your feet.'

    Since then a lot of people have been heard to say that. To a psychiatrist Dr Khanna has confided that he has periods of great burning in his feel. He has further indicated that he thinks he has been cursed. Dr Khanna's output of research since he came back has been zero. He has generally come to be known as the man who does nothing but stare at his feet.