Why Lonesome Efforts get Betrayed by the Spirit of the Times?

19    

                Why Lonesome Efforts get Betrayed by

                            the Spirit of the Times?

The district collector was much concerned. Some hen-pecking reports of hay-fever from the countryside were falling in his unobtrusively stiff ears. His tone and tenor suggested he was serious about it. Very strangely picking up this trouble, spotting it with an odd microscopic view of his responsibilities, he gave a clarion call for its eradication. A health program billed as ‘Hay-fever: Diagnosis and Prescription’ was launched–-much to the chagrin of his administrative subordinates basking in diametrically antagonistic attitude.

Primary health workers, child development officers, panchayats and anganvadis (crèche) were forced to come out of their cosy circles of obscurantism and spread the consciousness about the precautionary and remedial measures of the disease.

One such team, feeling cross and dejected, was on its way to the rural areas. Task at hand was almost unachievably Herculean: to find out the suspected cases and churn out some official looking report using the data inputs from the suspected and actual cases of the fever.

Sulking in the sallow complexion of their minds, the team traveling in a blue-white state government old and jangling jeep was trying to cheer up its sagging spirits by making the responsible collector the butt of their jokes. As the vehicle came to a hiatus halt by the school, the profligate ninnies (who were having a lusty sneak-peak at young girls of tenth standard through the school windows) came to know about the team’s painful plight.

Drawing a semi-abstract serious expression on his face supporting a scar tissue on the left cheek, one of them proffered an aid, “There’s the suspected case,” he pointed his stubby index finger towards the frail old man standing by his hut. His tone sounded proud for adding some naughty information to the official diary.

The doctor, a true scion of corrupting consumerism in his trade, narrowed his sad eyes behind his glasses. He had silver strands in his thick, rumpled hair. His thickly set jaw-bone became taut with the propensity of a pipe-wrench. The speck of a figure against the background of mud, pond and the harvesting pollen hazing around dimly made its appearance as his first inspection prey. And that too without much of an effort! His muttonchop whiskers flashed a ray of hope. It was a reawakening light. That meant no unnecessary wanderings through the streets of this village! Hurray!

“You mean that someone by the hut near the tree?” rekindling magic of an easy prey lifted his spirits. “Call him!” rendezvous aplomb of his duty sounded razor-sharp like a surgeon’s knife.

The compounder, a restless man with his eyes deep in their sockets, dashed down the embankment. Out of breath he shouted from below the mound.

“Hello, you sick man! Doctor is waiting for you there!”

The fishkeeper was lost in the harvesting rituals going full speed in the fields around. Poor fellow, unaware that same dusting nuisance had put him eligible for an attendance in the doctor’s court.

“Hey you, don’t you listen deaf old sick man!” chivalrous little cog in the state’s health plan yelled angrily.

The fisherman came out of his porcelain thoughts and suspiciously stared in his direction.

“Come on old wrinkled sack rottening with hay-fever! The doctor’s waiting for you there. Come quickly!” arraigned array of notes this time sounded giving an ultimatum.

“Me? But, I’m not sick,” puzzled old man managed a feeble protest.

“Oh, you spindle-shanked one! Like every criminal a patient too says this. Now, don’t waste time, otherwise we’ll drag you from here!”

“But… but…”  his crackling feeble voice seemed pleading.

The Sadhu came from behind like a jostling lame duck; his profound eyes full of disagreeable looks.

“Yes, yes get rid of this feverish skeleton, otherwise he’ll condemn a same fate to my robust body,” he said spinously, pushing his neighbour.

With conflicting dilemmas inside his head, the watchman followed the health worker.

The five-minute wait had raised tempers in the officials’ hotheads. The angry looking doctor put his stern stethoscope all over the frail body; popped the watchman’s eyes and stared in them accusatively; asked him to protrude his tongue as forcefully as he could; took hold of his magically beating pulse.

Undecided and mulling over his diagonically-stripped shirt, he said, “We’ll have to take your blood sample.”

The old man’s eyes parted wide with awesome uncertainty. He took it to mean bottles of blood. Butcherly the doctor pricked his finger and mercilessly squeezed out a mildly sanguine droplet. “Ayee…” from the old man’s strangely contorting face let heartless peels of laughter around him. The doctor grinned with his prize-drop on the slide.

“We’ll test it in the laboratory,” a much relieved doctor said; happy at last that he was able to do something enough for ordering a lunch in the name of his official duty. “And yes, in the meanwhile don’t run away and take these pills, one after each meal-–if you eat any.”

Once again there was an appreciating burst of laughter, accolading the doctor’s prankish mood.

Within a month of this episode the collector was got rid off-–transferred. His sylphid administrative manoeuvres had turned him an eye-sore to many of those who had been forced to do their duties. Reclamation of the encroached lands, cleanliness drives, official action on complaints and many other such minor issues were the sinful administrative acts which filled up his pot of posting in just three months. He indeed ruffled some feathers during these ninety odd days; made some headlines in the local press as well. So, as a reward he was felicitated out as quickly as possible.

When people get habituated to clichéd chaos, then a hand trying to bring about orderliness becomes reprehensible. Embittering tirade of his righteous spirit was thus prematurely suffocated. So, all he was able to do was just accomplish a little flower bed. And once the gardener was gone; cactus, thickets and bushes once again sprouted vandalically to reclaim their former teemless land.

                                          *  *  *  *

The one man mission was going on as usual. The teacher was busy even during these summer holidays. An additional room was under construction in the primary school. He was working as a labourer under the mason’s authority. Villagers laughed at it as a salary-man’s ineptitude. A teacher bringing water buckets from the pond; holding the ladder; laying out soil and mud; carting bricks! What a dedication for doing something constructive for the society! Numbskulls, but, condemned it as a whimsical contrition by an about-to-go-mad mind.

The vagabondage was ever ready to unsheathe its dirty sword against all his efforts trying to turn all falsehoods and half-truths into humanistic full-truths. The very same brats who shivered before him in nursery classes now scribbled blasphemous vulgarities on the school walls. Some were written when the plaster hadn’t even dried, so they were permanent.  As for the chalked down literature of indecent foibles he was able to wash them down. However, while doing so what pained him most was the familiar handwriting than the sexually explicit obscenity. So he was ever trying to plaster up the literary nuisance of his former pupils. But despite all his efforts, whole of his righteous pride would water down filthy sewers when he came to see (in the company of female teachers) his penis caricatured on a wall and nastiest of prose and verses raising a storm of shame at the littlest of a look.

Some people are so lion-hearted about their constructive attitude and aim that all the bickering and stumbling blocks of society prove lily-livered before them. Their victory mightn’t stand out glaringly, but only their heart knows how much good-will they’ve earned in the eyes of God by holding the rope from the side of an outnumbered goodness in the tug-of-war with badness during the present dark times.

Ram Singh was made of such unbaffling stuff. His school––which the government claimed to be its own––was his home. So when the whole village was stuck up with their small houses, his bibulous self was soaking up the woes of this big one. Whole length of the wall along the street had been cleansingly, restoratively plastered and whitewashed. A new gate, shining with the palpable synergy of a mighty gateway to reform and renovation, welcomed in its nice décor of rustproof underclothes and a shiny new grey painted suit above. Repaired roofs of two rooms now essayed a rejuvenated protective smile over the students’ soft heads learning the lessons of life under them. The latest room now smiled for completion as the windows and doors were being installed.

This was the meaning of holidays for his duty-bound heart, which in its persistence and patience knew how to take genuine steps for the plausible, practical perception of reality (without mulling over the hypothetical ways of obstacles which cropped at each step).

What were those lady teachers doing during this period? Enjoying holidays, of course. At least, there was no need to deploy prudery to shirk work now. Even during the vacations they held unforgettable grudges against him. During the school’s private days he won’t allow them to spend a single moment in leisure. But now as government teachers, security of wage at the month’s end and a cool pension after retirement had put off the rein: so all the good things naturally got exiled. No role and responsibility of the village elders and panchayat now; no low drone of that palpably ponderous relationship between teachers and students; no feisty notes of cordiality among the staff: because the job now wasn’t encrusted with the pleasing spectacle of some distant selfless cause and aim. What was left was just a harshly cold formality in the name of education.

Many teachers had served in this pair of schools for the past many, many years. Some of them were from the village itself. Some came from the neighbouring villages and a few came from the far off districts. In fact, the science teacher, Shri Suresh Chander was from Uttar Pradesh. Rami, now a peon––messman in the private hostel of the past––hailed from a remote hilly village in Garhwhal district of then Uttar Pradesh. His children were born, brought up and educated on the school’s sprawling campus. It was thus a big happy joint family of teachers, their children, students and the proud patriarch, Pradhanji.

But then the smoke arising of the patriarch’s pyre sang funeral oration for the joint family as well. It was thus to be broken. Modern society has no place for such big joint families whose members enjoy camaraderie in full veracity. Once the government got its secret wish-list fulfilled, usual reshuffling and casually cavalier changes came out hissing. Hardly a month passed without a farewell to a long-long companion who was now transferred to some other corner of the state. Loony lyrics from the dormant recesses of past bade a teary-eyed farewell to a brother, a colleague, a fellow staff member and a friend. At each farewell there used to be a pining surety that in future they won’t get a chance to assemble (all of them) under a single roof.

From the drowning vestiges of the great man’s legacy, students fled like mice from a sinking ship. In lackluster frenzy parents took their children to other little-little spicy school shops cropping up at every nook-corner of the state; true, sincere and serious education meanwhile plummeted down to suicidal depths.

Like the systematic squeeze of shoe laces criss-crossing through the eyelets, the government dismantled or knotted down the great man’s legacy. Hostel was done away with. Poor Rami (Ram Dutt his real name) lost his job. During these many years spent in the plains’ bonhomie, rugged, mountainous wilderness from his character had been eroded down. So he couldn’t even think of going back with his family to their native village. And what could poor science teacher do? He wasn’t shifted and there was no hostel. So Rami doubled up as a cook for him. And the gardener, in addition to his official responsibility, acted as the peon. In this way five or six of them were left in the school’s empty immurement, where the past’s golden memories waged a relentlessly grim struggle with a grimly hedonistic present.

The new teachers, strange and impersonal like machines, filled up the ranks. None of them knew a single line from the great man’s epopee, which was once written over this countryside horizon like a rising new sun; lived its life fully and then died in the dark night. The solitary soul of Ram Singh was, meanwhile, trying to see his star lost in the celestial zoo twinkling with stars, planets, galaxies, novae and super novae.

Now there was no annual function proudly saluting the school’s anniversary; no calling of students by referring to their fathers’ names; no caring inspection tours by the village elders; no play between the teachers and students after school time. What was spared by the modern education? It was just a little commemorative shrine on the great Bengali’s ashes; at which no one looked for inspiration.

And what happened to teacher Sube––bravely, cajolingly holding the first step on the educational staircase in his multifaceted role as a friend, guardian, playmate and guide to the kids. In those glorious days, he walked with a teacher’s utmost pride entailing his army of hundred student toddlers. Master Sube’s army it was called. Phonetics of the cramming kids seemed to fuel his heart’s soufflés. Like Ram Singh he too had been shifted to the adjoining school. Sheen of his past vigour had gone. Now he was a mute spectator to the official apathy; while the lone campaigner came in full-headed confrontation with the government-permitted convenience.

It seems the society tends to abide by the law of entropy in the universe, i.e., its tendency to disorderliness is always on the accelerative side. Hence, all those who’ve tried to manage the social chaos have been treated in a more chaotic way. Or say, chaos has backfired on them.

Take for example master Suresh, the science teacher, who had been imprisoned like an undertrial culprit in the new scheme of things. During those floral and leafy days he used to be filigreed with praise for his rekindling magic in mathematics and science. Naughty versatility in students drew flak at his mere sight (due to the awe of his mastership) despite the fact that he was a slightly built unaggressive teacher, who very rarely used a stick.

But now the headmistress––government had sanctioned her the power to bully the staff for even non-educational matters––had no respect for this misfitted man in her staff. She was completely similar to those idlers who know nothing of their subjects, and come to school just to fill-up the attendance sheet and pass time. Genious of that bright past was many times humiliated by this lady who was once heard saying, “You don’t know how to teach! I’ve got complaints!”

Or on a bigger scale, consider the heroic struggle waged by Ram Singh at the social front. Alas, social tide finds these small waves coming from a different direction unbearable and antagonistically destroys them. Yes, by the look of it there is no justice acoming for the good things being braved at small, small personal fronts. And what role our media plays in this? Nothing at all! Exclusive preserve of its farcical light falls only on the floating jargon. Otherwise, how can it be possible for a floral life like the great Bengali’s to go completely unnoticed by so many pockering eyes and noses of multitudes of media persons? Psst… such people, such lonely heroes never find a single line dedicated to them amidst such a huge amount of garbage being printed daily!

To shamelessly exemplify our point, media had produced a local hero (out of thin air). A local lad, who’d paid for a small role in a mediocre TV serial running on a not so popular channel, got a four column interview along with his heroically ornate photograph. He hadn’t done anything in the serial except a few brooding appearances during those dull reeled moments. But it created news. While the real constellation of a human life, like that of the school’s founder, never got a look from any media person’s news-pockering eye. This is the social justice of the times!

                                                20

  The Loner Gets a Compliant Follower on the Solitary Path

Dogs since the days of human settlement have seen their masters’ evolution from those primitive ways in the forests and along the banks of mighty rivers, when the animal and its master fought in the walloping game of survival. Now, thousands of years away from that paean-past they have been left out as exotic showpiece pats in big metropolitan cities.

At least in the rural areas the street dogs still make their ends somehow: poorly inveterate creatures, they can’t survive elsewhere. They’re the beggars without a begging bowl. Across the countryside there still survive many of them. Dogs festooned with a pet-belt; stray dogs wandering as a nuisance; skinny desi dogs and stockily built local wild dogs such as gaddi; hunting dogs, sleek and lanky as if they ate months ago, like the Rampur hound.

How sulky-silent their world looks in a noisy, palaver world. Yet the canines try to raise a voice against the human foibles: like their loud crying howls when they get struck for sneaking into the houses; or those periods of nightlong barking in the rote repetition of some historical contrition; or fooling themselves by barking at their own echo following 0.1 seconds later due to the laws of sound in some dark corner.

Occasionally they do get a chance to have a pinprick at the unfaithful master’s deflated ego.  So, the modern man has still a fear of them while walking across streets (coddling the ill-thoughts in protuberance inside his heart) in the dark of night. Or for that matter, who can feel too confident of his footsteps while knowing that he has to pass a silently sulking dog whetting its greed and waiting to bite from behind without a growl, as if reminding, ‘Beware of humans like me!’

Then there’re dogs like our very own in the story: an unhectoring recluse whom the minimalist circumstances forced to abandon the dewy duets of isolation and come near a human settlement. And when the matter of choosing a human ally came, the stoic shibboleth cleverly opted for the less qualified of the two persons on the mound.

Its innocently-muddled dark eyes belied its age. Big muzzle, in contrast, showed all that old age weariness which can be seen on the old wrinkled human faces. A nameless one, it didn’t know the fleecing traits of the pet ones using playful tricks to get food. It just looked mutely; its big ears drooping quiescently; its black coat hung flaccidly as if the force of gravity affected it more than the rest of his body. It kept its finely shaped head somewhat slouchily tilted to the right, as if wondering over something. Gloomy clouds of his appearance shadowed the visibility of his true virtues. Demystifying visage of old age however filled even a human heart with an elderly respect for this old canine.

Like any other dog this one too had a keen sense of smelling. But its lack of systematic search for the prey left it only drooling its nose around bushes in complete vain, while the bunny or mouse sat secure inside.

Thank God, it got a kennel right in between the huts, where it lay snoozily! And whenever its look fell on any of the mound dwellers, it seemed to say excusably, ‘No owners, and no enemies. Just give me your leftovers.’

Age-enforced unaggressiveness made him look on the side of some timidness. But when it barked at a stranger coming up the mound or at some trespasser during the night, huge convulsions over its coat made its ferocity many times exaggerated. However a few kicks from the Sadhu’s nocturnal visitors, and now the gang’s buffoonery, convinced it that they all were enemies and not a single friend among them to bark for. So, whoever came there he allowed it without any resistance. In a way it made his life easy manifold, because he didn’t need to put his old lungs to trouble any more.

When it walked on those paws, with some of the nails broken, it seemed to pedal the time’s languid tides. Till now he’d found this new place quite bearable; a sort of dapper den free from paroxysmal street dogs. But the rough and tumble of life’s path gets sharply accentuated by the cregs and clefts we happen to step over. The dog too met one.

One day, the hoodlums arrived with a new addition to their group. It was a punster looking tabby-white puppy. The little canine was at that stage of its physical evolution when the growing puppies look naughtily wanton. From its mischievous playful side, humoured mirth of a troubling childhood was self evident. There was a dog collar around its neck. Chain attached to it was proudly held by the head hoodlum, who seemed so happy to steer ahead the petardy misdemeanours of this little pet of his.

It trotted with a pailful sense of belonging, of being possessed and cared. All its masters, fully emblazoned with errant conduct, seemed to wink at each and every misdeed of this little troubleshooter. In synchronism with the conscious strivings of the above realisation, little purplish muzzle of this tiny punster tinkered and sniffed over each and everything that came its way. It would slangily smell at the passing-by feet and then edgily snarl. Seeing such tantrums its masters (Goddesses of whose religion were punks in their harlotry) burst out in ringing laughter: happy that this new addition too was marshalling its attitude according to theirs, and definitely one day will leave an indelible stigma on some civilized skin. Its fox like little head made it look quite funny and cunning at the same time. Nipping at the turncoats’ footprints, its bubbly and chirpy misdemeanour seemed to congratulate its masters for putting one more purposeless step on the meaningless path of life.

Peacefully and serenely, the oldie was sleeping in its kennel. Sitting on the divan they unhooked their friend’s chain. Little monster burst in his antics as if freed after a lifelong imprisonment. It went directly to the hermetically sleeping object, lying in the kennel like a heaped big blanket. Roguishly it sniffed at the old spartan. By the look of it, its puppyhood appeared to be shackled into a narrow compartment of mischief and misconduct. It ran its muzzle around the sleeper’s ears. Loud breath abrasively disturbed the slumberous air blanketing the mound’s third occupier. Sharp gnarls irritatingly threw freezing cold water over some verdurous canine dream. The intruder’s tail docked to an upright curl with such a force that its thin backquarter looked pervertively funny.

Spuriously rotten cry of encouragement came loudly from the chief vagabond’s mouth, “Come on Ballu! Teach him a lesson! Though you’re pint size, but don’t forget you’re the pet of such a brave man. Come on, prey upon him and bring him to dust!”

Pandering lullaby by the master quickly removed even the last inhibitive doubt from the little canine head. It thus caught hold of the foe’s ear. The sleeper opened its eyes with a nightmarish anguish. But before it could retaliate against the funny trespasser, its worldly wise eyes fell upon the hooting hoodlums. Realistion of kicking consequences forestalled any action by the old sleuth.

“Come on Ballu, what’re you waiting for? Tear it off! We’ll cook it for you today,” he sniffed with such rashness that he himself seemed to be howling.

“Hey Ballu, go to his backside and do with him just as we made you do with that little bitch!” yelled another.

“Yes, fuck this old ghost!” another exclaimed, emphatically emotion charged.

“Why? Why, do’u people want my Ballu to become an old-rectum-fucker at such a young age? You can do it yourself man. First of all I want him to grow strong and then father puppies from all the bitches in the village. Especially with that fine-hipped bitch of darling Sushma!” he let out a pogromically lusty moan, as if just by imagining about the beautiful girl he’d ejaculate.

“You won’t get her. So, get after her bitch. Ballu will help you!”

“Aye, motherfucker! Seems he’s got his heart stuck on that little bitch. Why not? The owner hasn’t spared him an eye. So if not the girl, let it be with her bitch.”

“And you? You say this! As if I don’t know about that bitch with which I caught you in the sugarcane fields,” mud-slinging started among the bitch maters.

“Hey stop!” lampoon leader bade his flail-order. “If bitch fuckers’re lily-livered like you, then I don’t want Ballu to become such. Rather I’d accept him as your mother’s mater.”

For a moment there was a humiliated silence.

Then the horrendous slur chorused retaliation, “Once addicted to mothers, he won’t spare your mother too, even if she’s living in hell.”

His---the head hoodlum’s---parents had died a few years ago. All alone in the world with his daredevilry, there was no reason for him to feel insulted. As for the rest, two of them had a helplessly surviving single parent. Others had very easily presumed their still surviving families to be long dead. Hence, all of them were congenitally naive to the exploding offence of these vulgarities.

Once again they got busy with doggy prattle. Ballu was now breaking all boundaries of decency (even among the dogs). After all there is a limit to everything, beyond which the punitive consequences follow without bothering about any further consequences.

Now the little cog of nuisance was at the top of helplessly lying big dog. He was having big tattering bites at the elder’s aged honour. His masters were slangily whistling and clapping. Fully engaged in the shuffle and muffle of black shaggy hair, the doglet was barking shrillest of a growl. With mouthful of black fur the attacker gave strong jerks as if to tear it off the skin.

The victim arose. The culprit was now hanging from its side. With a mouthful of the old dog’s skin and hair it paddled its legs helplessly. In a strong swipe the blackie brought the chubby, tabby nuisance to the ground and guffawed with its broad mouth over the mousy thing as if to gobble it up.

Ballu cowered itself into a small bundle and gave such a loud pitiful whining cry as could be heard right inside the village.

The master cried at the top of his paroxysmal voice, “Oh my devil, kill that big bear!”

They picked up whatever they could manage at the shortest notice and struck wherever they could. Poor old dog got the hardest of a beating in his lifetime. The puppy escaped. Its tail completely disappeared between the legs. All of them ran after the dog which dashed for life. Finally it got out of their reach, but not before getting whole lot of strikes. So by the look of it, they appeared satisfied with the revenge.

After this incident, they’d take Ballu forcibly to its opponent and make it quarrel with the blackie still cyclostyling its mind over the beating. In the meantime, many hands were ready to strike right at the moment it showed slightest of a resistance to their dear pet.

Their nightmarishly malevolent manoeuvres were humiliating even by the parameters of canine world. This warped psyche of theirs shifted the old dog from its middle position between the two huts. The poor animal knew they belonged to the hut on the banyan side, inside which Ballu walked so proudly.

Animals never leave their place so easily. They stretch us to the farthest limits of brutality, before they finally give up. So, the poor old dog left the kennel and started to pass its time on the little paddy hay-stack which the watchman had erected for his cooking fire. This place was at the easternmost edge of the mound. Here he was out of their eyesight. Much to the oldie’s respite they were so uncaring even in animosity towards a thing or person that they didn’t care about it as long as it wasn’t before their eyes. The tattlers were thus always embroiled in the general gloriole of vainglory in which no particular thought, emotion, thing or person raised its existential aura. And the day it would; only God knows what might be the consequences.

The dog was now surviving completely on the morsels from the eastern hut: the hut with a tenebrous look. Yet, there was a type of saintship about it. Its occupier knew why and how it’d happened. But he could only be a mute spectator to the whole thing like those insentient objects around. His heart thus pitifully sighed for the old tenderling. These were but only compliant humanistic pronouncements upheld by the court of his invisible conscience, which were very easily overruled by the reality. However, inside the secure depths of his court he could defend this dog like George Graham Vest, who, during the last decades of nineteenth century, served as a senator from Missouri.

Here is his ‘Tribute to the Dog,’ whom he defended in the court like this:

“The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

“A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he maybe near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in an encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.

“When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

“If the fortune drives forth the master an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.

“And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the grave side will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.”

All said in a divine compendiousness about the dog and his master! But throughout his life, the old Blackie-–if we can put him in the baptismal immersion of name during the fag end of life-–had no master, and now there was this man who thought about him on the lines of George Graham Vest. Piteously the watchman would look at the dog and his thoughts certainly started to revolve around a fondness for the old animal which seemed to wait for death serenely and then leave this world as stoically as it’d lived-–unknown, untaught and unnamed. But now the constellation of a solitary line seemed to pull him in the predetermined orbit of a master. There was nothing anfractuous about it. It was as simple and natural as it can be.