by Tahir Shah
Lesson Four: jog round the courtyard backwards, holding a five kilogram block of sackcloth-covered ice. Stop only when the ice has melted.
Lesson Five: blindfolded, sort a jar of dried rice and lentils.
Lesson Six: catch twelve live cockroaches in a tin mug. No props permitted.
After a full week of the torture I could endure little more. The drills were exacting a heavy toll. My legs were afflicted with housemaid’s knee and my spine seemed permanently distorted. My hands had been badly slashed; my elbows were ridged with welts; my stomach was bruised like a plum fallen from the highest branches of a tree. My face had blistered, and my eyes were bloodshot and bulging after so many hours in the dazzling sunlight. The wounds were made worse by the lack of healing time, and the constant reapplication of dirt.
Feroze no longer signified a man of great skill and refinement. I had begun to despise everything he stood for. Always immaculate in tailored finery, with his hair slicked back like the barbs of a moist feather, his face scented with aftershave, he was the diametric opposite of what I had become. Even when blindfolded, fumbling for rice grains, I could sense him bending over me. A whiff of lavender eau de toilette preceded him, alerting one to the random inspection.
Perhaps the magician really had a deep-seated hatred of Hafiz Jan. Was torturing me the most pleasurable route to revenge? But then again, the Pashtun had warned me constantly of Feroze’s merciless methods.
A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by a passionate sadist.
Feroze relished the ever-expanding curriculum of tribulation. The more pain that was inflicted, the more successful the lesson had been. I was kept going by the idea that all the hardship might be leading somewhere.
The unconventional assignments were graded by an equally off-hand system. The few times I had managed to comply with the instructions, I was condemned more vigorously than if I had failed. The whole thing left me confused and further enfeebled.
As if the courtyard ordeals weren’t enough, additional chores were added to the schedule. In the middle of the night, Feroze would appear in my dingy, roach-infested room in the servants’ quarters. How he got in, I don’t know. After the first nocturnal intrusion, I kept the door bolted from the inside and a chair pressed up under the handle. I would have queried how he had traversed the barricades without disturbing them, but he was not the kind of man who took kindly to his movements being questioned. He would chime three times on the mess mug. The signal for my attendance.
“Yes?” I would wheeze, still half asleep.
“I want you to learn this Bengali poem. I will test you on it later.”
Four printed sheets would be dropped on the floor.
“But I don’t read Bengali.” I would murmur, knowing well such an excuse was not satisfactory.
“Then Feroze would say, “you had better find someone who does.”
Long before dawn, I would rouse Gokul from his slumber and beg him to read me the poem. Without an uncivil word, he would go through the stanzas.
At dawn, which was commencement time for lessons, I would ask the magician to test me on the poem. Sometimes he would do so. But on other occasions he would ask:
“Have you learnt it?”
“Yes, I have,” I would reply.
“Then what point is there in testing you? We aren’t in kindergarten now, you know.”
* * * *
At six p.m. on 31 December, Feroze came over to where I was lying face down like a fallen soldier. For most of the day I had been crawling on my knees, ferrying teaspoons of dirt from a bucket at one end of the courtyard to another at the other end.
I was close to tears. Until then I had maintained some sort of composure. During the first week there had been no mention of magic. For all I knew I had joined the wrong course.
Feroze’s ruthless regime had finally broken me. Dirt was still finding its way into the rent skin of my elbows and shins. My right knee, now copiously bandaged with strips of rag torn from an old sheet, was despicably damaged.
As always, Feroze was oblivious to the distress he had caused. Bending over me, he ruffled his shoulders like a rooster marking its displeasure. He handed me a fluffy handkerchief with which to wipe my nose. I buried my sunburnt face in the cool folds of silk and blew very hard. Plugs of compacted Calcutta dirt were discharged at high speed, like darts fired from a blow-pipe. It was a satisfying feeling. Unable to stand up unaided, I stretched up in the hope of returning the handkerchief to the magician. With a horrified grimace, he waved the cloth aside.
Rapping once on his tin cup, Feroze signaled for Gokul. The faithful valet pottered out from the kitchen. The staff of four servants had been trained to recognize their own individual signal, all of which were tapped out in Feroze’s own form of Morse.
“Gokul,” he instructed, “please help Mr. Shah to his feet. See that he’s bathed. Make sure his ears are very clean.”
“Yes, Sahib!”
“You won’t be staying here tonight,” Feroze said, peering down at me.
“Oh?”
“You will be spending the night on Park Street.”
Images of a whirlpool Jacuzzi and a double bed with crisp linen sheets overwhelmed me.
“Should I go and stay in a hotel?”
“That won’t be necessary,” replied the magician dryly. “I have arranged something special for you. Gokul knows the details. He’ll escort you.
“As I extracted the grime from the inner reaches of my nostrils and ears, I found myself filled with new energy. Park Street: Calcutta’s answer to Piccadilly … what could be a more capricious contrast to the teacher’s compound?
The manservant led me out into the street. It was already dark. Under his right arm was a brown paper package, tied up with string.
“Where are we going, Gokul?”
The servant chose not to respond verbally. Instead, with a solicitous expression, he looked me in the face somberly. Then he gazed down at the mysterious package.
“Are we going to a New Year’s party? Will there be fireworks?”
Gokul was silent.
“Is that a gift you’re holding?”
Still Gokul said nothing.
When the taxi ground to a halt at the quiet end of Park Street, I began to question exactly what was going on.
“All the fancy hotels are the other end of Park Street,” I said.
“Yes, all at other end,” replied Gokul.
“There’s nothing down this end except for some paan stalls, gasoline stations and …” Remembering the third thing which Park Street was well known for, I fell silent with mounting distress. “Paan, garages,” I recapped, “and the South Park Street Cemetery!”
Gokul ducked his head in confirmation. He was not taking me to a lavish fun-filled New Year’s bash, but to the cemetery – where I was to spend the night. Alone.
“Gokul,” I whispered as he pushed open the wrought-iron gates of the British burial grounds, “is there any chance we can come to an arrangement?”
The servant made it known that corruption was not a possibility.
“Master may be checking up on you,” he replied sternly. “Cannot cheat.”
We passed the gatehouse, making our way down one of the main paths to the end of the expansive graveyard. Without warning, Gokul froze in his tracks, placed the packet on a mid-sized tomb, and wished me luck. He would be back for me in the morning.
Turning on his heel, he walked through the blue-tinged darkness back to the gates. I sensed his fear of the cemetery; but despite it, he marched away with reserved dignity.
When he had gone, I opened up the parcel, fumbling its contents in the darkness. Inside were a candle, a box of matches, a nylon blanket, a handful of dates, six deep-fried samosas, and a low-quality pamphlet about the cemetery.
Park Street Cemetery
is a fascinating place. Were it not for the abominable circumstances of my visit, I might now be publicizing it more enthusiastically. Built on what were once the furthest boundaries of the city, the cemetery is almost in the center of the modern Calcutta.
Deserted by everyone, even Gokul, whom I had begun to consider as a true confidant, I pondered what to do next. Within minutes my eyes adjusted to the unrelenting darkness. A high mildewed wall surrounded the entire graveyard, shrouding the disconcerting world within. Beyond it, I could hear the clash of evening traffic, enlivened by the prospect of ushering in the New Year. The wall was like a barrier between two worlds. Unfortunately for me, I had crossed the River Styx, into Hades.
Anxious to preserve morale, I decided to treat the night as a military reconnaissance exercise. This approach would keep me focused and might dispel any trepidation at enduring a night with the dead.
First I repeated my grandfather’s trusted maxim: Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted. Then I tightened the muscles of my back, like a hunter stalking his prey. I was ready for a preliminary exploration.
With the candle burning brightly, I slunk forward, inching down overgrown paths, taking in the assortment of tombs. Pyramids – no doubt inspired by those at Giza – rose up into the night sky. Roman cupolas were dotted about like bandstands at Brighton. Wherever I stepped, there stood imposing monuments of stone – mausolea the size of country cottages; faced with Carrara marble, topped by imposing granite urns.
Flicking through the pamphlet in the candlelight, I read the history. Founded in 1769, the cemetery was closed twenty-three years later, bursting at the seams with Englishmen. Some of the most illustrious children of the Empire are buried there. The Calcutta they knew was very different from the modern city. Then it was a place of fearful illness, where the feeble expired in agonizing deaths. Struck down by cholera, rabies, smallpox, malaria and tuberculosis, the tender European constitution had little chance. Many more were slain by mysterious diseases of unknown name. The tomb of Jane Eliza Maclean – who died in 1826, five months after reaching Calcutta – records that her death was due to “one of the fatal diseases incident to the climate of India”.
As some perished at the hand of exotic disease, others met their end through lifestyle. Drink was the most notable executioner. But others died by more startling methods. Sir John D'Oyly, the sixth baronet and former Minister of Parliament for Ipswich, was buried at Park Street after expiring from “a nervous complaint due to an inordinate use of the hookah”. Another, Rose Aylmer, a girl of seventeen, was buried beneath a glorious twisted cenotaph, having expired from “eating too many pineapples.”
The largest of the pyramids was Elizabeth Jane Barwell’s mausoleum. It served as a landmark in my night wanderings. As I stumbled through the low undergrowth I came across many extraordinary graves: a great-granddaughter of King Charles II; a great-grandfather of William Makepeace Thackeray, and a son of Charles Dickens. They rest in the tranquility of their garden at the center of one of Asia’s most unwieldy cities.
Overshadowed by sprawling pongamia trees, planted by the British, the cemetery was more like an enchanted druid grove than an antique burial ground. Strangely, I felt no misgivings walking there at night. This sense of ease was perhaps because, in India, one can never be truly alone.
At its south-east corner the brick wall had been breached by a great hole, the kind which an iron cannonball makes. Through the opening I could easily make out the tail-lights of Ambassador taxis. They beckoned me like a mirage. Why not make an escape? Sneak into town for a gourmet meal … a night on the town … then skulk back to the cemetery before dawn. It was a fine plan. Lowering my head, I glanced left and right. Silence.
I made my way to the huge aperture. But someone was following me. I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I swung round, terrified. No one was there.
“Who is it?” I called.
“Where are you going?” said a voice, in fluent English.
“Nowhere,” I spluttered. “Just going to have a look at the hole.”
“You mustn’t leave the cemetery!”
“Oh,” I replied apprehensively. “Who are you?”
A figure slipped out from behind a crumbling tombstone. I squinted to get a better look at him. It was a boy, aged about fifteen. He was barefoot, dressed in a light-colored shirt and a checkered lungi. His back was long as an archer’s bow, his movements spry and over-accentuated.
“You’re supposed to stay here!” he shouted.
“Yes, I know. But how did you know?”
“It’s my business to know,” he said. “Come and sit with us.”
“Us?”
The cemetery’s brochure had said that brigands once lived in the tombs. It said they buried their treasure in pits between the mausolea. Was this a juvenile brigand? How did he know about my latest hardship?
“Come and sit with us,” repeated the young man.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“My name’s Topu. I live here with the others,” he said, motioning me to follow him.
We came to a crude home-made tent. Located well away from the gatekeeper’s lodge, it was concealed from the main graveyard by a low earth bulwark. Outside it, three others – about the same age as the first – were hunched around a fire. They showed no surprise at seeing a foreigner.
“They don’t speak English,” said Topu.
“Are they your brothers?”
“No, we’re friends.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you already, this is where we live.”
“You live in the graveyard?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I suppose.”
The boy clicked his knuckles.
“Of course we get thrown out quite often,” he said. “The workmen rip down our tents and burn them. But we always come back. Just outside the wall, a free soup stall is set up every morning. We’re usually first in line.”
“How did you know I was meant to spend the night here?”
“A man came and told us to watch out for you.”
“A man …? Was he an old, well-dressed man with a mustache?”
“Yes, he was old and very well dressed. He gave us a hundred rupees.”
“Feroze!” I choked. “He hired spies to make sure I didn’t cheat.”
“The man asked us to watch out for you,” said the child.
I had endured enough of Feroze’s barbaric treatment. Even when stripped of all dignity, abused like a convict in a Siberian gulag, I had put a brave face on things. But this time the magician had surpassed even his own despicable record. Beside me, the four boys stared into the flames – their faces illuminated like those of choirboys at a midnight Mass. For me, this, the year’s final night, was its most unconventional; for them, it was another night in a life spent under the open sky.
I had come in search of stage magic, and was spending New Year’s Eve in an abandoned cemetery. India has a way of perceiving what one lacks, before surreptitiously prescribing its own antidote. Rather than grounding in conjuring, was I getting what I really needed instead?
One of the boys held out a piece of burnt chapati. It tasted surprisingly good. Remembering that I, too, had a little food, I brought out the dates and samosas, and passed them round.
“This is a big graveyard,” I said, breaking the silence. “Why don’t more people live here?”
“Hundreds of people used to,” replied Topu, biting into a samosa, “but then they were thrown out when the cemetery was cleaned up. A lot of criminals lived here till recently.”
“Yes, I read that.”
“It’s true,” continued the boy. “Some of them hid their loot in the ground. There’s lots of treasure here. They even stole the skeletons to sell to the konkalwallas.”
“Who are they?”
The boy raised both his eyebrows at once. Lowering his voice, and leaning towards me, his face bathed in marigold li
ght, he explained:
“The konkalwallas buy bodies dug up from cemeteries and from the unclaimed body dump. They dip them in an acid bath and then ship the bones abroad.”
“Who wants skeletons?”
“Schools that teach doctors, of course …” Topu paused to stuff another samosa into his mouth. “But now it’s illegal to export skeletons.”
“So has the business died out?”
“No, it’s just much quieter now. It’s gone undercover.”
Topu knew so much about the used-skeleton business that I suspected he was himself somehow involved in the illicit trade.
“How did you learn such good English?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I used to help at my friend’s bookstall at College Street. It sold medical textbooks. My friend taught me to read and speak English.”
“What do you do now?”
“Well,” said Topu, “we do odd jobs.”
“Why don’t you look for the cemetery’s buried treasures?”
Without saying a word, Topu looked across at me, and smiled.
The sound of Calcutta’s rooks woke me to the first sunrise of the year. Flapping their immense wings like pterodactyls, the great black birds soared round the graveyard, swooping down between the monuments. I looked at my wristwatch. It was already seven o’clock. I glanced round. The boys had fallen asleep, curled up beside the smoldering fire outside the tent.
Anxious that Feroze, or even Gokul, didn’t realize I had met the boys, I prepared to creep back to where I had left the manservant.
Topu heard me clambering to my feet. He opened his eyes and sat up.
“See you again,” he said.
“Yes, I hope so.”
“If you need anything in Calcutta, you know where to find us.”
“Thanks, Topu, I’ll remember that.”
The cemetery was as serene by day as it had been at night. Its tombs seemed distinctly out of place, like the remnants of a lost world. I could imagine with ease the solemn colonial corteges lowering their loved ones by torchlight. Brothers of the Raj, who had lived and died here – they were of another time. Like the opulent imperial buildings they had constructed, the mausolea at South Park Street were no longer on Calcutta’s agenda.