It is 50km from Bangalore. My father was a landlord. He practiced sharecropping. He provided the land, seeds fertilisers and other inputs. Labour was provided by the 'tenants'. The output was equally shared by both the land lord and the tenants. It was subsistence farming. Ragi, Paddy and Sugarcane were cultivated. Sugarcane was made in to jaggery. At the end both the land lord and the tenants would get just enough to eat. Jaggery was sold in the market for cash. The cash would probably be used to buy a pair of clothes.
For this story, let us call this tenant 'Mr. Vanna'. More often than not Vanna would badly need some money to go another village for wedding or he would need some ragi to make up for the shortfall for himself to eat. He would have to come to my father for a loan of money or ragi. It was not a question of Vanna merely asking for the loan and my father giving it. My father would have no incentive for giving the money. In fact he would stand to lose as the past dues are still outstanding. Every evening he along with his entire family would come to my house after they had his dinner (not my father), sit there, plead, humour, accuse, threaten, gossip, discuss politics of the village, till late in to the night until everyone is exhausted and cant' hold back sleep any more. My father would start a whole litany of all the mistakes he, his family,his friends, his ancestors and his livestock had caused our family. No conclusion is reached and it is end of the day's play. Day 2 could start and end in the tenant being overzealous trying to do favours solicited or unsolicited, or it could be a day of petulance. It could go on like this for a week or even a month depending on the time available and the amount of money involved. Some days he would bring one or two people who are in 'good books' of my father to influence them. Some one who who follows Test Cricket would probably understand this. Finally his stock of ragi runs out or the day of weeding arrives, and my father would pay him half of what he asked for in 2 instalments. ( If the US banks had shown this prudence ,we wouldn't' have had this recession).
Now, my father has to document or account this transaction. It was not any double entry account system. It would not even be in the form of a table such as date/person/amount etc. It would be in Telugu and would read more or less like " On the Monday before Kelamangala (a nearby village) festival 20 measures of ragi was given in the presence of Papanna, his wife, and papanna's brother-in-law, who lives in Hosur(another nearby village) who all had come to my house to fix the date for the wedding of papanna's brother-in-law's third daughter; and now with last years 7 bags of jaggery pending, and Vanna not growing jaggery any more, and he having agreed in front of Venugpalaswamy Temple in the presence of Reddy who had come there ro invite us t for the wedding of his brother's 2nd daughter to repay in ragi at the rate of 51/2 measures of ragi for one bag of jaggery, hence Vanna has to totally pay some XXX bags of ragi at the time of next harvest". It is all in one mind numbing breathless sentence with numbers strewn all over inside the sentence. Breathless because my father never had the practice of leaving space after each word. Some times even numbers may have been written in words. According to my father all these details were necessary, because Vanna was illiterate, and unless all the details were recorded to aid his memory, he might think he is being cheated.
I had many times attempted to understand this accounting system and whenever I asked my father for some clarification he would fly into rage at the inability of his educated son to understand such simple account. I had given up after being chastised a few times.
Come the harvest season, it is a good harvest. Vanna wants to payback, may be fully or partly. Here comes Mr.Sampatthu, Vanna's son. Vanna might be illiterate, but his was son was 'educated'. He had gone to school until 3rd standard. He could probably manage to write his name. But as far as his father was concerned, he could have been a Harvard MBA. There is a total bonhomie in the atmosphere. My father is glad because he had already mentally written off the loan. Vanna is happy because he is able to payback and is a proud " I don't' owe a damn to any body". (again if the US borrowers were as self respecting, we wouldn't' have had this crisis). Only Sampatthu is anxious because he does not know what is happening, but has been brought by his father to scrutinise and okay the accounts. But Sampatthu need have no fears. My father has no intentions of spoiling the bonhomie by exposing Sampatthu. He offers Samaptthu a special place to sit, praises Sampatthu for his education and wisdom, scolds Vanna for not giving much respect to educated people. My father reads out the account ( Vanna for all his illiteracy knows every detail by heart, you cant' fool him), thrusts the book in to Sampatthu's hands, urges him to see for himself saying that educated people should trust only the books. Sampatthu puts his head in to the book. Probably what appeared to him was the same as what would appear to me... meaningless strokes of the pen, some numbers here and there unable to figure out the beginning or the end. While Smapatthu is lost in a daydream, his face hidden inside the book, my father would launch in to appreciating the interest and sincerity of Sampatthu in scrutinising the books.Vanna's face is lit in admiration at his son's act of extreme education. He asks him -in a tone of a parent who does not want his son to see his soft side- if everything is alright. My father would say ' You must be joking! Do you think he would have kept quite until now if any thing was amiss', and turning to Sampatthu 'Do you agree if everything is aright? If not you must frankly tell me'. Sampatthu nods meekly signifying the approval of the independent auditor. Sampatthu looks in amazement as if to say 'is that all?' and finally allows himself a smile.
