The Vendor of Sweets

One morning at breakfast, Mali tells Jagan that he is quitting college. When Jagan asks whether Mali is being bullied, Mali says school isn’t “interesting.” When Jagan suggests that he could go to the college and talk to someone, Mali glares. Jagan suggests that they talk about it later—though he feels he should tell Mali to go to school—because he’s afraid of putting Mali off his food. Ever since Ambika was hospitalized for the first time with “brain fever,” Jagan has cooked a lot for Mali—though eventually Mali insisted that he would eat in the college canteen and would only accept breakfasts from Jagan. Now Jagan asks where Mali is going to eat if he isn’t in college. Mali retorts why it matters when Jagan is always saying people can go without food; then he leaves.

That evening, when the cousin visits Jagan in his shop, Jagan tries to call him over—but the cousin goes into the kitchen to taste the wares first. While waiting, Jagan sees schoolchildren gaping at the Sweet Mart window, but he refuses to pity them, thinking that he can’t give out sweets for free. He begins thinking about poverty in India. When the cousin comes out of the kitchen, Jagan announces that people don’t know how good they have it—“especially young men.” He tries to quote a report he read on the subject but forgets exactly what he wanted to say.

Jagan tells the cousin about Mali’s idea to quit college and explains that he’d hoped Mali would get a B.A. because he himself never did. He claims that he left college because Gandhi told him to engage in non-violent resistance, and so Jagan spent his college years in prison—omitting to mention that he had repeatedly failed the B.A. exam and dropped out of his college prior to protesting under Gandhi. Then he asks the cousin what excuse this generation has not to study. The cousin suggests Jagan talk to Mali about it; Jagan retorts that the cousin should talk to Mali and tell Jagan about it later that night, adding that Mali has called the cousin “uncle” since childhood.

At 10 p.m. that night, the cousin comes by Jagan’s house, and they take a walk. The cousin explains to Jagan, who is spinning disaster scenarios in his mind, that Mali simply wants to become a writer. Jagan understands the term “writer” through the lens of British colonial rule, when “writer” meant a lowly clerk for the East India Company. He asks why Mali would want such awful work.

The cousin, not realizing that Jagan has misunderstood the word “writer,” continues: he waited for Mali outside the college, where Mali was saying goodbye to his school friends, and overheard Mali telling his teachers that Jagan might send him to America. Jagan shouts, “America indeed!” and bewails Mali’s strange notions. When the cousin points out that Mali could be a “Tagore or Shakespeare,” Jagan suddenly realizes what kind of writer Mali wants to be. Relieved, he asks the cousin what Mali wants to write. The cousin, unsure, suggests that Mali may want to write poetry or something.

The cousin explains that when Mali finished speaking to people outside the college, the cousin invited him for coffee. At a restaurant, Mali told the cousin that he loathed the college and everything about it; at one point, Mali even ripped up a schoolbook and asked a waiter to burn the pages in the kitchen. Jagan, horrified, asks the cousin how Mali could do that when books are “a form of the goddess Saraswathi.” When the cousin suggests that since Indian education is so poor, it makes sense to tear up books, Jagan says he hopes the cousin hasn’t been talking to Mali like that. But when the cousin says that Mali composed a verse about book-burning on the spot and ate a great deal at the restaurant, Jagan is pleased again and offers to reimburse the cousin for the food.

Jagan and the cousin keep walking and talking until midnight. Suddenly, a frustrated Jagan wonders aloud why Mali can’t study and write at the same time. The cousin offers that Mali said studying interfered with his writing. Jagan asks whether Shakespeare had a B.A. When the cousin points out that Kalidasa didn’t, Jagan retorts that Kalidasa lived 3,000 years ago and was “a village idiot” before receiving divine inspiration from Saraswathi. The cousin suggests that perhaps Mali could become “another Kalidasa.”

As soon as Jagan gets the chance, he peeks through Mali’s keyhole into his room. Much to Jagan’s disappointment, he sees Mali sitting around glumly, doing nothing—he was hoping for some Kalidasa-esque writerly activity. He knocks hard on Mali’s door. When Mali opens it, Jagan muscles past him into the room and asks whether he wants a nicer table for his writing. Mali asks how Jagan knows about the writing, and Jagan—who can see no evidence of writing in Mali’s room—says that “these things become known.”

Humbly, Jagan asks what Mali is working on. Snootily, Mali replies that he is working on a novel. When Jagan asks how Mali learned to write novels, Mali asks whether Jagan is grilling him. Jagan tries to ask more questions about Mali’s project, but Mali claims not to know many of the answers, saying that writing isn’t “like frying sweets.” Jagan asks whether Mali’s friends are writers too, and Mali dismisses his friends disparagingly. Jagan, who thought Mali liked his friends, thinks wonderingly how little he understands his son, whom he has known for 20 years.

Mali explains that he saw a novel-writing competition with a 25,000-rupee prize in Ananda Vikatan. Competitors must send in their submissions with a filled-out coupon from the magazine before September 30th. Jagan points out that it’s May, and Mali retorts that he has five months. When Jagan asks whether Mali has started his novel and what it’s about, Mali complains that Jagan is grilling him and doesn’t believe in him.

Jagan effusively claims to believe in Mali. Meanwhile, though, he wonders why an “invisible barrier” exists between him and Mali, even though Jagan has always been a kind, giving father, especially since Ambika died of a brain tumor 10 years before. He remembers Mali looking frightened and confused after the family doctor visited Ambika during the final hours of her illness, asking what the doctor had said to Jagan. Jagan abruptly broke down, “wail[ing].” Mali looked at him with confusion and “dismay”—and ever since, there has been distance between father and son.

 Jagan tells Mali again that he believes in him and that he only asked about the story because he was curious, due to his love of stories. Then he claims to be a writer himself, mentioning his book at Truth Printing. Mali asserts that he’s trying to write “something different.” Father and son continue talking deep into the night. During this conversation, Jagan learns that Mali cut the competition coupon from Ananda Vikatan in his college library rather than buying his own copy to get back at the college librarian, whom Mali believes is stuck up.

At the sweet shop the next day, Jagan brags to his head cook that Mali is going to earn 25,000 rupees with a novel he’ll write by September. When the cousin arrives, Jagan tells him about Mali’s plans too and adds that he hopes Mali will “emulate [Jagan’s] philosophy of living” after he wins the prize. The cousin wonders aloud why Jagan keeps making money at business, given his philosophy of simplicity, and Jagan replies that it’s one’s duty to work—and besides, he’s supporting his employees. Then, out of nowhere, he announces that he will never use “essences for flavouring or colouring” but only natural ingredients in his shop.