The Examiner's Paan

The Examiner's Paan

On a railway journey, if you find a companion of your own tastes, the whole road passes pleasantly. Some people, it is true, can pass the time with anyone they happen to meet, but I, sir, am very uneasy with people not of my kind, and especially when they chew *paan* (betel leaf). I am not like that now, but there was a time when I was ready to pick a quarrel with any passenger who chewed paan. If I won, well and good; if I lost, I would move away from the spot myself.

I was going from Delhi to Agra on some very urgent business. By good luck a most agreeable companion joined me at Ghaziabad. He was the son of a Hindu barrister and was studying for his M.Sc. At the Khurja station another gentleman arrived. Being of our age, he too came to our bench, and many other people got in as well, and among them I saw, with great unease, a gentleman who chewed paan. This gentleman headed straight for our side, and I took fright. Meaning to sit on my bench, he wanted the porter to put his luggage down beside me.

"You can sit quite comfortably over there," I said, pointing to a bench packed tight with luggage and passengers. He probably took this as rudeness, and said with some offence, "Perhaps you would take the trouble yourself, sir."

"This place is taken," I said churlishly, resorting to a lie. But by then he had had his luggage put down and was already seated. He looked at me closely... I was looking at him not with disgust but with anger, because a paan-chewer did not so much disgust me as make me angry (now he does not do so at all). The gentleman wore a dove-grey *sherwani* (long buttoned coat) and a Turkish cap. He was perhaps forty or forty-five years old. His clothes were neat, clean and spotless. When the train moved off, I was worrying that now he would certainly take a paan out of his box and chew it, because from the motion of his mouth it looked as though the paan in it was about to be finished. Just then my eye fell on his handbag, from which I at once concluded that this gentleman was the *munshi* (clerk) of some barrister, because on it was written: "T.H., Bar-at-Law."

I am not ill-mannered or churlish now, nor was I ever, but since I bore a grudge against passengers who chewed paan, I was now thinking how I could get him away from here. In a little while, however, I became absorbed in conversation with my two companions. We had not been talking long when there was a click. There is a world of difference between the click of a cigarette case and the click of a paan box. Although my back was to him, I knew it, and the damp red cloth of the paan box rose before my eyes without my even looking. I turned and saw a piece of paan in his hand. Out of politeness he offered it to me. To me it was like the lash of a whip. I said with heat, "Kindly excuse me from this foolishness."

I saw what effect the sentence had, but apart from a movement of his head he said nothing. I was neither ashamed nor sorry. Hardly any time had passed before he put his head out of the window and spat. I turned and said on the spot, "Respected sir, if this is the business you mean to carry on, kindly find yourself another seat."

"What did you say, sir?"

"I said, sir, that you should squirt these red jets somewhere else." With great self-control he said, "Forgive me, but I am not used to this kind of talk."

"If you are not used to such talk, sir, then I am not used to people sitting beside me and spreading filth..."

"Sir, you might just..."

"There is no power nor strength save in God!" I cut him short. "Just think of it, chewing leaves like a goat... by God!" Turning to my companion I said, "And this betel nut is a fine thing too. It is like chewing firewood or timber."

The gentleman's face went red with anger, but with great forbearance he fell completely silent, turned his face away from me, and acted as though he had heard nothing.

"You ought not to have said that," said my companion, observing my bad manners.

"I cannot tell you how much I hate paan."

(2)

Our new companion who had got in at Ghaziabad turned out, strangely enough, to be a classmate. He too had sat the LL.B. final examination at Aligarh, and so had I. We did not know each other at all, because there were a hundred and seventy-five students in the class and the lectures were held at night. As it happened, we had never set eyes on each other, or if we had, we did not remember it. The other gentleman was surprised at this. The result of the examination had not yet been published; only twenty-five days had passed since it. Inevitably the talk turned to the examination. All his papers had gone well, and all mine had gone well too. The year before he had passed in the second division and I in the first. I was quite certain of passing, and he said, "Sir! A second division is surely yours, it can't go anywhere..." How pleasant that sentence was to me! In my heart I was thanking God that the last stage of my education too was over, for I was entirely certain of passing. There was no room even for doubt, unless something out of the ordinary should happen in the office of the university registrar.

Every paper was discussed, and we estimated how many marks we hoped to get in each, and the least we reckoned was that a second division was certainly ours. There was some discussion of where we would begin practising law, and then the possibility of the practice not succeeding was discussed in such a way that both of us roundly denied it. The Aligarh station came, and the gentleman who had got in at Khurja got down. As he left, we wrote down each other's roll numbers with names and addresses, and promised to write to each other... (To this day neither has he written to me nor I to him.)

The train left Aligarh. I noticed a strange thing. Until now the paan-chewing gentleman had been somewhat hurt and sullen, but now he had been looking at me for a long while. All the anger had vanished from his face. Perhaps he was a man with a clean heart and had forgotten my rudeness. He asked me, "Did you sit the LL.B. final this year?" As he said this he opened his box, and I had barely said "Yes, sir" when he offered me a paan again. Smiling, he said, "You hate paan, but try eating it and see."

I looked at him... Was it possible that he had put aside all seriousness and was teasing me, to take his revenge? That was certainly it... At the thought I grew very angry... His face did indeed show it, for there was a mischievous smile on it. He held the paan out further, and I thought the best answer was to accept it with a bow, take it from him and throw it out of the window. I was sure I had won. But instead of being annoyed, the gentleman now seemed set on making me his practice target. Offering a second paan, he said, "If you throw this one away too, you will regret it all your life."

I am not ill-bred or foul-mouthed or insolent, but some harsh sentence very nearly escaped my lips. Even so, instead of abusing him I began to condemn paan, and pleaded that, paan being dirty, I could not bring myself to touch it.

"Forgive me," he said, putting the paan in his own mouth, "you have no manners." He said these words with a change of tone, somewhat gravely. I said, "Yes, sir, you are quite right, but I take pride in answering the bad manners of paan-chewers with bad manners."

"Well, God be praised!" With this he got up and began to open his suitcase. I began talking to my companion, the one who had sat with me since Ghaziabad, when he took me by the arm, turned me towards himself, held an answer book in front of me and said, "Do you recognise this handwriting?"

I was somewhat flustered, and my wits failed me. I looked at the gentleman's face; he was enjoying my confusion... Besides being alarmed, I felt thoroughly small... It was a fact that before me lay the answer book of the examination in Muhammadan Law. On it marks had been given in red, like this: 65 + 10, that is, I had got seventy-five marks out of a hundred. I had felt a little pleasure at seeing the marks when he said, "You did the paper very well and you earned 65 marks, but because, besides the references to the law, you had also cited all the *hadith* (sayings of the Prophet) on which the sections of the law and the questions and answers rested, I gave you ten marks more. But now I find that, let alone Islamic law, you are ignorant even of Islamic manners. So in my judgement you ought not to get more than 10 marks in all." So saying, in front of me and my companion, he took a red pencil from his pocket, struck out the 65 in red, and signed his name there as well. Now I also knew the meaning of the letters I had seen written on his handbag.

This gentleman was my examiner... My state was what it was, but my companion, himself a student, was utterly astonished and impressed. In fact both of us were dumbfounded. Calmly putting my answer book away in his suitcase, he said, "For at least three years you may give up all thought of passing. For I shall certainly be the examiner and I shall fail you, since in my opinion an ill-mannered person cannot learn manners in less time than that."

How could I answer that sharply? I was out of my senses. He went and sat on another bench, aloof, his face hidden behind a newspaper. A little later, when my heart had slowed a little, my companion began to talk with his eyes wide open. Flattery was the last thing on his mind; he said, "I am a witness, you can bring a suit against him." Perhaps the examiner heard this, for he threw down his newspaper and said, "I dare say I know more law than both you gentlemen, my dear sir! If that were possible, every student would find a witness and file a suit against every examiner, whether the thing had happened or not. I assure you both that my decision is final. Bring your suit, by all means."

I was silent, but my companion began to argue with him; after a while I had perforce to stop his mouth, because the examiner was growing angrier. After a short silence my sympathetic companion was again trying to win the examiner round and urging him to be lenient. I sat silent, praying that God would make him relent, but heaven help us! "Don't pester me to death," he said, and became absorbed in his newspaper.

(3)

The Hathras station was approaching, and my companion was about to get down. The examiner got up to fetch his paan box. He opened it, took out a paan and offered it to me. My heart began to beat fast. With an innocent and doleful face I looked at him. My hand went out of its own accord... Believe me, I was eating paan.

"Do take some betel nut!" said the examiner, holding his pouch out to me. Since I was eating the paan without betel nut and it was nearly finished, I was afraid to refuse, so I took some and put it in my mouth. He went back to his seat, and here the betel nut felt as though someone were scraping the inside of my mouth. Although the examiner was not looking at me, I still did not think it wise to spit, in case he should see. Not being used to it at all, I found the betel nut a torment. But I chewed and chewed it until I had ground it to powder. By the rules of paan-eating, a paan-eater may spit once he reaches this stage, but perhaps I did not know that, though I had certainly seen people spit out the chewed residue. In a little while only the dry pulp of the betel nut was left. As I had taken more than was needed, I could not swallow so much either; for a long time I kept turning it round in my mouth, and then I thought the lavatory the best place to spit it out, so that the examiner could not see. When I came out after spitting out the betel nut, the examiner said in a somewhat commanding tone, "Have you spat out the paan?" I went numb, and lied, "No, sir!", but in a most lifeless voice.

All this while my companion, though a student of M.Sc., was studying my face in a philosophical manner. My face must indeed have deserved it, for embarrassment, foolishness, grief, discomfort and so on, besides alarm and distress, must certainly have been plain upon it. The Hathras station came and he got down.

(4)

After my companion had gone, I was sunk in heaven knows what thoughts... Flatter him... I have never flattered anyone. Or rather, I should say I do not know how... But joining my hands in entreaty would do the trick. If he did not agree, I should lay my head at his feet. Then the thought came: there is no power nor strength save in God, we shall see next year, or else I shall take a job. Death is better than such flattery.

The Tundla station came. I was going to Agra; the business was extremely urgent. I gave a start... What should I do now? That was the question. God alone knew where the examiner was going. Well, I ought at least to buy a ticket to Cawnpore, and that is what I did. When I came back with the ticket, the examiner was sitting talking to a gentleman. Perhaps an acquaintance of his, I said to myself. I sat down. The examiner took out his paan box... I took fright, but there was no help for it. He offered, and I had to eat it with every show of pleasure.

"Well, sir, paan is a fine thing, isn't it," the examiner said to his friend.

He replied, "Yes indeed, for me a journey without paan is a misery."

"That is just how it is with me," said the examiner, and then, turning to me, he asked, "Well, sir, what is your opinion?"

My state is easy to imagine. The joy of victory was plain on the examiner's face; I sat defeated, like a statue. Clearing my throat I said, "Yes, sir!"

"Oho, you eat paan very fast. It's finished; have another," said the barrister, though it was not finished. But how could I say that it was not finished and that I would not take another? So I took it and ate it. I was silent, and felt a certain relief that the barrister was busy talking to his friend. They went on talking for a while and I listened, and I also learned where I would now have to go. Then the barrister, having perhaps gauged my plight and seeing me in a quandary, said, "Spit it out now, you are only chewing betel nut." I spat and was released. Thank God he did not give me another paan.

(5)

At the Cawnpore station I made my plea to the barrister. What that plea was I cannot say myself, for I said nothing and he could hear nothing. Perforce he said, "Go on... what is it you are saying..." As someone has put it, my whole appearance was a petition. With great difficulty I said, "My life will be ruined... I shall be good for nothing..." and so on and so forth... The short answer to all this was, "Forgive me. Once I have done a thing, I can hardly change my mind." So saying, he made for the Lucknow train. And I said in my heart that I would not let him go.

I was not to let the barrister go, and I did not. God preserve us, the journey was to an obscure village in Jaunpur district. On the way I said not a word to the barrister, nor he to me. I sat quite apart, far off; he gave me no paan and did not speak to me. This much is true, that now and then he would look at me closely. At an obscure railway station in Jaunpur district the barrister and I were perhaps the only two to get down. The barrister, deliberately perhaps, did not even look at me. His small amount of luggage was put on a little bullock cart, and I watched the bullocks going off fast in the dust. It must have been ten in the morning. I had had no breakfast, nor was I hungry. I stood watching the cart for a long time, and then suddenly I started. I had not even found out which village it was that the barrister had gone to. But a villager kindly told me that it was the cart of the landlord of such-and-such a village. I found a labourer, had my luggage loaded on his head, and set off.

At four in the afternoon I reached the village. Finding the landlord was no difficulty. In a little while I was standing outside his splendid fort, wondering what to do now. I left the luggage outside with the labourer and went in. On a raised platform in front, the barrister was lying under a fan. Two other men were reclining in chairs. Some conversation was going on. I hesitated a little, but went forward as any newcomer would. The barrister returned my greeting, rose, and met me with a smiling face. He asked where my luggage was and had a servant fetch it. Pointing to a room, he told me to go and bathe and change my clothes.

I too went straight in without ceremony. When I came out after bathing, there was a country-sized helping of milk sherbet waiting in the room. The barrister must have seen from my face that I was hungry. I came out of the room and sat down outside. The barrister offered me paan, which I had to eat. I sat entirely silent until the two men got up and left. But before they went, the barrister had fed me four paans. What shall I tell you of the state I was in a little later from eating paan after paan? For two or three paans I could still feel the lime touching my mouth, but by evening my mouth was in quite another condition.

This was the barrister's in-laws' house, and in the evening his father-in-law appeared. I was introduced as a kind patron and a compendium of virtues. Until eight at night the son-in-law, the father-in-law and the kind patron sat talking, but what became of the kind patron from eating paan after paan, God alone knows. When dinner was served I could not move my mouth, for the paans had wounded the whole inside of it, and on top of that the betel nut seemed to rub salt in the wounds.

"Paan is a fine thing," said the barrister after dinner, offering me a paan.

"It is beyond compare," I had to say.

"It aids the digestion of food, removes the impurity of the mouth, and is exhilarating," said the barrister.

"Exhilarating too!" I said, in a show of wonder.

"It is a very fine thing," said the father-in-law, "but in moderation."

In the morning I had a chance to tell the father-in-law of my trouble. Only he and I were there, and it was the best of opportunities, since in the course of conversation he had of his own accord asked me questions about my future life. He heard my story with surprise, but laughed too, and promised me to put in a word. Just then the barrister came in as well. I do not wish to tell what was said and what happened. To cut the story short, it was settled that I should stay four days more and eat paan night and day, according to the saying... "This too, in love, on top of all the other sorrows." [TN: Persian: "In ham andar ashiqi bala-e gham-ha-e digar."]

What shall I tell you of how many paans I had to eat in those four days! My mouth was in a terrible state, but I ate paan after paan and never said "ouch". When I left, the barrister said, "You will never forget my paan now." And indeed, though more than a year has gone by, the memory is still fresh, and perhaps it will never fade.

The result: I now eat paan with great relish!