Peace reigned at home, with speech reduced to a minimum between father and son. Mali seemed to have brightened up at the fact that he wouldn’t be expected to study. Jagan continued to feel gratified that his son was pursuing a fresh course, all his own. “Instead of reading other people’s books, he is providing reading for others,” he often reflected with a lot of pride. “He is doing a service in his own way.” When he remembered the word “service”, any activity became touched with significance. “Service” intoxicated him, sent a thrill through his whole being and explained everything. The first time he had heard the word was in 1937 when Mahatma Gandhi visited Malgudi and had addressed a vast gathering on the sands of the river. He spoke of “service”, explaining how every human action acquired a meaning when it was performed as a service. Inspired by this definition, Jagan joined the movement for freeing India from foreign rule, gave up his studies, home and normal life and violated the British laws of the time. Neither the beatings from the police nor the successive periods of prison life ever touched him when he remembered that he was performing a “service”. “Everyone should be free to serve humanity in his own way,” he told himself and, “Mali is really helping mankind with his writing.” “What does he really write?’ he often wondered. Stories? What sort of stories? Poems? Or did he write philosophy? He had a passing misgiving about his son’s experience of life, his equipment to be a writer. He had uneasy thoughts sometimes when he sat on his throne in the shop looking at the pages of the Bahgavad Gita. However, profound the lines before him, his own thoughts seemed to be stronger and capable of pushing aside all philosophy, while revolving round the subject of Mali’s manuscript. He wanted to know which language his son’s Muses accepted, whether Tamil or English. If he wrote in Tamil he would be recognised at home; if in English, he would be known in other countries too. But did he know enough English, Tamil or any languages? He felt worried; his mind was racked with questions. The simplest solution of questioning Mali directly seemed impracticable. What could they discuss? Mali seemed to have become detached, more detached than ever. The only link between then was the five-rupee currency note that he left on the hall table every morning and checked later to find out if it had been accepted. Perhaps the boy lunched and dined at Ananda Bhavan; it was galling to think that his money should find its way into that cash-desk. It could not be helped; it was supposed to be the best restaurant in the town; but Jagan knew that they did not use pure ghee but hydrogenated vegetable oil in unlabelled tins – they were naïve enough to think that if the tins were unlabelled the public would take them to be real butter.