It will never be enough—nonsense! The commotion refuses to die down. The likes of Reo Bhat and others are still bustling about, sometimes getting a whipping, and shouting, “Well done with the funeral feast, eh!” At last, the gentlemen present at the gathering, witnessing this spectacle, began to remark, “Who performs whose funeral rites? The Brahmin dies, and the shroud-cutter eats his fill.” It’s best to slip away now—why lose one’s dignity over a mess of sour tamarind?

21. Motilal’s Inheritance of the Estate and Babudom, His Ill-Treatment of His Mother, Departure from His Mother and Sister’s House, Forbidding His Brother from Returning Home, and the Brother’s Departure to Another Land.

At Baburam Babu’s funeral, people did not feel much reverence, just as thunder does not always bring rain. Many oily heads received more oil, but the dry scalps cracked for lack of it. The professors’ only skill was argument; the city-wise Brahmins of the “friends’ circle” won with their cunning. The professors, owing to their many strict habits, had become rigid in nature—they followed their own inclinations and never said “yes” to any bargain. The city-bred Brahmins, on the other hand, were seasoned by urban life—they spoke to please the babus, struck when the iron was hot. For them, every job was a job, every curry was curry. So is it any wonder they received the highest honor everywhere? The professors sat with their purses tightly shut—whether the Brahmin pundits and beggars received a grand send-off or a paltry one, they cared only for their own reward. The one act that had caught everyone’s eye and could not be ignored was loudly proclaimed, but there was no balanced consideration of pros and cons. Such management is merely cutting a ribbon to win applause.

The commotion of the funeral feast gradually subsided. Bancharam and Thakchacha began to flatter Motilal in their own peculiar way. Motilal, weak of character, was easily swayed by their honeyed words and began to believe that there were no relatives in the world as dear as these two.

To enhance Motilal’s sense of importance, one day they said, “Now you are the master; it is your duty to sit on the late master’s seat. Otherwise, how will his position be maintained?” Hearing this, Motilal was overjoyed. In his childhood, he had heard a little of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, so now it began to seem to him— Just as Ramachandra and Yudhishthira were enthroned with great pomp and ceremony, so too must I be seated upon the ancestral seat. As soon as Bancharam and Thakchacha saw this proposal, Moti Lal’s face began to glow with delight—so much so that the very next day, they fixed an auspicious date, invited all the relatives and acquaintances, and installed Moti Lal upon his father’s seat of authority. News spread through the village by the beat of the town crier’s drum: “Moti Lal has inherited the seat!” This tidbit began to circulate in the market, at the bathing ghat, in