‘I did not say I will not see Mr Taylor,’ protested Sher Singh. ‘I simply asked what use it will be and you all start getting angry.’

‘Don’t worry, I will send him,’ said Champak smiling. ‘I will make him ring up for an appointment today.’

‘Good,’ pronounced Buta Singh. ‘When a man is friendly and also happens to be an important officer, one should take advantage of it. Ring up his P.A., tell him who you are—mention my name—and say the Sahib wanted to see you. He will give you an appointment.’

When Sher Singh rang up the Deputy Commissioner’s office, Taylor himself answered the telephone. Sher Singh’s English crumbled to a breathless stutter punctuated with many ‘sirs.’ Taylor brusquely ordered him to come on Tuesday which was the visitors’ day.

Visitors’ day came a week later. Sher Singh had expected to be received alone. When he got there, the Deputy Commissioner’s regular hangers-on were already waiting their turn to be called. There were village officials in their starched turbans and baggy trousers, with their pistols strapped on their sides and cartridge belts running across their chests. There were fat businessmen from the city in their thin shirts and dhotis. There were officials in silk suits and ties. They sat in a row of chairs in the verandah. Sher Singh had great contempt for such people; but here he was sitting alongside them waiting his turn to be summoned. His father had terrified him into submission. He had visiting cards specially printed so that one could be sent in to the Deputy Commissioner. He had his own silk suit altered and made Sher Singh wear it instead of the militant looking open collared bush shirt made of coarse hand-spun cloth. The process of humiliation was carried a step further by the reception Sher Singh got at Taylor’s bungalow. One of the regular callers, a colleague of Buta Singh, recognized him and proceeded to introduce him to all the others. ‘Wah bhai, wah,’ he went on after the introductions were over. ‘We used to ask how long will it be before this disciple of Gandhi will become his father’s real son! Today in your European outfit you look like the heir of Sardar Buta Singh.’

‘Yes, Sardarji,’ drawled another who looked like a common informer: stiffly starched turban with its plumes waving in the air and a shifty, cunning look in his lecherous, antimonied eyes. ‘What is there in Gandhi’s followers? When an Englishman says, “Git awt you biladee,” they will run like jackals. Sardar Sher Singh, your father is a wise man. You should follow in his footsteps.’