by Tahir Shah
“You’ll know it when you find it,” replied Feroze. “Now leave me … I have a rat to dissect!”
* * * *
With one hand on my stomach, and the other wiping the stream of sweat from my brow, I set out into Calcutta.
Through disorientation, I headed south by mistake, instead of northeast into the heart of town. Before I knew it, I was inching my way down the macadamized surface of Judge’s Court Food. Famed as a haven of the sophisticated in days gone by, Judge’s Court is one of Alipore’s old imposing roads. Now a place of faded grandeur, it’s home to a ragtag assortment of used furniture shops. Packed from floor to ceiling with roll-top desks, chandeliers, organs, and wall cabinets, bracket clocks and card tables, the shops are testament to changed taste. No longer do Calcuttans cherish the Indo-Baroque masterpieces of the past. Who wants a classical rosewood throne when they can recline in the comfort of a fluffy nylon easy chair?
As I wandered through the wide avenues of Alipore in search of a rickshaw, I considered the magician’s medical prescription. How could I be taking medical advice from the person responsible for my condition?
“Bebtic ulcer very bainful,” mused the pharmacist at the Swastika Chemist.
“Yes,” I confirmed, “it’s desperately baneful.”
“Take six tablets every day for a week” explained the professional.
“Shouldn’t I be taking three tablets a day?”
The chemist shook his head.
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, ‘special offer … double dosage, same brice!”
I made a note of the Swastika’s address. Mustn’t forget about this place, I thought. This is a hypochondriac’s fantasy.
“What about the pain?” I croaked. “Will these red and white ones take away the pain?”
“Bain …?” said the pharmacist. “Is the bain unbearable?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” I bellowed. “That’s just what it is … it’s unbearable!”
The chemist screwed up his eyes like balls of paper. Then, sliding open an ankle-level drawer, he took out a brown glass bottle of lozenges.
“These relieve all possible bain,” he crowed, slapping them down squarely before me.
“How much do I owe you for them?”
“Bain-blockers,” said the chemist grandly, tilting his head backwards, “bain-blockers, no charge … experimental.”
Sliding a wrinkled index finger to his lips, he winked.
Before choking down a bain-blocker, something crossed my mind. A dangerous misunderstanding may have been about to claim a fresh victim. From the abyss of my unconscious mind a timid, lipless woman was signaling furiously. Had the chemist meant “brain-blocker”, rather than “pain-blocker”? Was I about to induce a self-inflicted lobotomy? Prepared to try anything to dispel the gastric distress, I knocked a couple of the oversized chalky lozenges to the back of my throat and gulped. The experience was not unlike that of swallowing pebbles.
I counted to ten. Then to twenty. My brain still seemed to be intact. But, as I wandered down Shakespeare Sarani, I found myself floating like a ball of fluff in the wind. It was as if there were no gravity. The chemist’s experimental pain-killers obviously needed a little more work. But as I glided towards the Maiden – Calcutta’s immense central parkland – I reflected that, for the moment, the pills would be just fine.
Without faltering, I listed sloth-like and bewildered into the seething traffic of Chowringhee. In a country where sedate driving is unknown, Calcutta’s frenzied thoroughfare is the zenith of all motorway madness. Uncontrolled and maniacal, wild as a nine-headed Hydra, ferocious as ten thousand vampire bats, Calcutta’s main street is more tempestuous than any act of God.
Bullock carts and Ambassador cabs; buses, their sides gashed like armor-plating peppered with anti-tank shells; herds of goats charging like migrating wildebeest, and traction engines on suicide runs: fording the commotion is to play Space Invaders for one’s life. Dodge the heavy guns, and the stealthy cycle rickshaws creep up like assassins – laden high with sea trunks, and schoolchildren, hilsa fish and urinals, balloons and computer monitors. Miraculously, the press of wheels, spokes and tramping hooves parted, like a great sea, allowing me to cross.
In the Maidan, I wafted over to the Ochterlony Monument. A towering fluted minaret, staring out like an alabaster lighthouse, it was a beacon for street performers. Arriving in their droves, they entertained in the long shadows of Sunday afternoon.
Staggering somewhat, searching for insider information, I made my way from one performance to the next. At one, a girl of about twelve was demonstrating her ability to write with a pen held in her toes. For one rupee she would scrawl out a love poem or a secret astrological message. Opposite sat a young swami on crossed legs. His face was pasty, his hands tinged with orange specks. A single charred pot stood before him, positioned on a checkered handkerchief. The vessel contained crocodile fat, apparently a cure for arthritis, impotency and abdominal disorders. Beside it was a pile of “miracle” shells from the Andaman Islands. An hour earlier, I might have solicited the luminary’s advice and purchased a square of crocodile blubber. But now the pain of my peptic ulcer was nothing but a distant memory.
Further on, past a skinny boy and his tightrope-walking pye dog, was another chap with wire-walking rats. Beyond him stood yet another lad. Like the others, he was in his early teens. But he was different. He had an engaging Charlie Chaplin smile, blinding teeth, and dimples as deep as sugar-lumps. Although tattered, his clothes were well kept. Yet it wasn’t his dress which caught my attention. It was his demeanor. This boy may have been operating in Calcutta’s Maidan, but he was haughty beyond belief.
His pitch was being mobbed by enthusiastic punters, all eager to get his attention. Inquisitive at the source of the commotion, I floated over. Once I had pushed my way to the front, I watched the routine.
A member of the crowd would hand the lad a hundred-rupee ($2) note, itself a tidy sum of money in India. The bill would be folded in half; and then folded in half again. Then it would be slipped into a miniature manila envelope which was placed on a brick, before a green parakeet. The bird would grip the sachet in its bill, ripping the corner. Next, the boy would throw the marked envelope into a box containing other identical, yet unmarked envelopes. He would shake the box roughly. Only then would he invite the owner of the money to search for the envelope containing his banknote.
Invariably, the marked envelope had disappeared.
Despite swaying from the bain-blocker, I felt certain I could catch the boy out. What’s all my training been for, I asked myself, if I can’t trip up an under-age hoaxer?
So when the boy challenged me, I accepted. My hundred-rupee bill was folded in half, then in half again; before being inserted into a crisp manila pouch. The parrot did its duty, and the torn envelope was thrust into the box. When the carton’s lid was removed, the child – who was minting money – urged me to search for my note.
I waved the box aside. The crowd stared at me quizzically. The young magician frowned. Swaggering with all the pomposity I could muster, I ripped the stall’s tablecloth away.
“This is where you hid my money!” I cried, sweeping the cloth back.
But the table was bare.
The crowd seethed with delight. Obviously expecting trouble from the foreigner, the entertainer slipped me his Charlie Chaplin smile, grabbed his parrot and props, and made off.
Back at the Alipore mansion, Feroze was pacing up and down the courtyard like a stallion before a race.
“Ah, back at last?” he puffed.
Without his captive, the magician had obviously been distraught with boredom.
“How was the rat?” I inquired, crossing the yard.
“Very interesting, actually,” replied Feroze. “It had a tumor in its intestines. If it hadn’t been frozen solid, it would have had an early death.” The Master groomed back his hair with his hands. “That reminds me, did you get your pills?”
“Yes.
Got some incredible pain-killers, too. They’re strong as a knockout punch.”
“Oh, can I see?”
Feroze examined the label-less bottle; then, removing the lid, he took a hesitant sniff. He raised one eyebrow, glanced at his pocket-watch, and then coughed.
“Do you mind if I take one away?” he asked.
“Help yourself. In pain, are you?”
The sorcerer chose not to answer. Instead, he inquired what example of insider information I had brought for him. When I retorted that I had come empty-handed – on account of medical reasons – he flew into a rage.
“Never …” he roared, “never return here without completing the assignment I have set!”
Only as I apologized did I conceive the true extent of the Master’s anger. By failing to bring him some nugget from my trip into town, I was in some way depriving him.
That night, in the dim light of my bedroom, I reflected on Feroze’s unfounded animosity. Brooding, I tugged the inner sole from my shoe and inspected the rubber bands. Revenge, when it came, would be sweet.
* * * *
Next morning Feroze met me as I descended the antique staircase. It was still not light outside.
“Good morning,” I said, inquisitive as to why the magician should be hovering at the foot of the stairs.
“Tahir,” he replied in an unusually sensitive tone, “do you remember those pills you brought back yesterday?”
“Yes, of course,” I replied, “the bain-blockers.”
“I’ve tested the one you gave me,” Feroze explained. “It contained mercuric chloride. Take two or three more and you’ll be dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you don’t believe me,” Feroze responded coldly, “keep taking them and see. Don’t forget, this is India – when a quack tells you a potion is ‘experimental’, take the hint and run off!”
For a few seconds I was touched by the magician’s compassionate veneer. But, as I set out in search of insider information, I remembered the past. I had endured far too much to forgive and forget.
Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India’s golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.
The subcontinent is a fine-tuned and well-practiced place. To the outsider it may appear random, or directionless. But in India, what seems haphazard is the product of five thousand years of exertion. Go with the flow, I reminded myself – never strain against the nation’s natural forces … and success must soon follow.
If ordered to scour a Western metropolis for trade secrets, I would have headed straight to the heart of the city. This being India, I turned my back on central Calcutta, and strolled towards the serene banks of Tolly’s Nullah canal.
I sat beneath a banyan tree to eat a packed lunch prepared by Gokul. It was five past ten, but my constitution had grown used to the Master’s timetable. A group of men were gathering cress with sickles at the water’s edge. Others were fishing with wiry concertina keep-nets, wading up to their chests like gazelle fording a river. Behind them, a family were flipping cow dung fuel bricks in the winter sun. Four young boys were diving into the canal in turns, clouding the water, splashing carefree; shrieking like jackals under a full moon.
In Europe, the last person I would turn to for help would be someone with whom I did not share a common language. When applying the golden rule of India, such a person becomes the obvious guide.
Sidling over to a bearded man of about my age, who was flipping dung bricks like dinosaur eggs, I struck up a conversation.
“Do you know where I’d find some insider information?” I asked.
The man looked at me with blank, swollen eyes.
“In-sid-er know-ledge,” I repeated, motioning obscure gestures like a psychotic mime.
Frowning, as he strove to decipher my sign language, the brick flipping man shook his head.
“Haa,” he murmured, as if he had understood my inquiry.
With a dung-clad finger he pointed at a distant building surrounded by a wall.
When I pointed to the same building, he nodded vigorously.
Excellent, I thought, I’m on to something here.
Ten minutes later and the building’s details were coming into focus. Rust-red crenellated walls with creamy cornerstones, barred windows, a pair of flat-footed sentries standing outside. Black marias heaved back and forth like overheated water buffalo.
“Alipore Jail,” spluttered a boss-eyed paan-seller, crouched outside the gate.
“Oh,” I said, sheepishly. “That looks like a strange place to go searching for insider information, doesn’t it?”
The paan-seller clipped a pile of sopaari, areca nuts. “Looking for Bhola Das?” he asked.
“Um, I'm looking for insider information,” I replied. “Who’s Bhola Das?”
The paan-seller winked his good eye twice.
“Bhola Das … famous hangman of West Bengal!”
“Ah, yes … that’s who I’m looking for. Yes, that’s right. I’m looking for the hangman!”
Who could have better trade secrets than a hangman?
“Where do I go?”
The paan-seller motioned to a low hatch within the main studded portal.
Pausing for a moment to get my story straight, I knocked twice on the door. There was no reply. I knocked again. Only then did a guard put his face to the door’s grill.
“Bhola Das!” I shouted. “I have come to see Bhola Das – the famous hangman of West Bengal.”
The guard slid the visor back across the grill. A bunch of keys rattled inside. The door within a door creaked inwards.
One guard ferried me to the next. To each I whispered the cryptic password … the name of the hangman.
After a long wait I found myself sitting before the warden.
“I have come to see Bhola Das,” I explained. “I think you will find that he’s expecting me.”
“Very good, sir,” said the warden, signing the necessary paperwork to authorize my visit.
He pressed a button beside his desk. Before I could turn my head, a watchman stepped from the shadows and led me through the fabled jail of Alipore.
Up and down stairs, around corridors and along straight passageways. The soles of my shoes rasped on the flagstones as we proceeded through the maze. The liveried guard halted before a robust steel door.
“Bhola Das?” he confirmed.
“Yes, it’s the hangman I’ve come to see.”
“Very good, sir,” squirmed the watchman, as he knocked on the door. The door opened inwards.
Inside was a square, stone-walled chamber, illuminated by natural light. A solid wood table stood in one comer. On it was a noose, crafted from coarse hemp rope. Adjacent to the table a man was sitting on a three-legged stool. His hair was snowdrop-white; his cheeks were obscured by a rough gray beard, his steely eyes hidden behind scratched lenses, and his shirt and lungi were old, yet neat.
“Bhola Das?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the man. “I am Bhola Das.”
“I would like to speak with you for a few minutes.”
The hangman glanced at a clock mounted high on the wall.
“Do you have an execution to administer?”
“No,” said Das dolefully, “I have no work today.”
Whereas other states in India elect their executioners on their own merit, West Bengal employs hangmen from a single hereditary line.
“My father and his father and his father before him were all hangmen,” exclaimed Das, stretching his spindly arms behind him like locust wings. “My father killed more than six hundred convicts; but that was in the time of the Britishers, and there were far many more to execute then. My father was sent to Glasgow during the Raj. He hanged Indians at the prison there. I suppose,” said Das solemnly, “you could say that hanging is in my blood.”
“What’s it like to hang a man?”
The hangman stared at the floor, then with
eyes cold as sleet, he gazed at me, taking in the features of my face.
“To kill a man,” he said softly, “is a dreadful thing. To bring a man’s life to an end is almost too much to bear. I am a hereditary executioner. This is the work of my forefathers. I do not judge the profession which they have chosen for my line. But I ensure each man I kill dies with dignity and without pain. I believe I am the finest executioner in India. I do not claim that for an idle boast. Before killing a convict I cannot sleep for three days. I cannot eat either. I spend time alone, thinking about the life which I am about to end. Then, before I place the noose in position, I ask the criminal’s forgiveness. I tell him I am only doing what the government and the court has asked me to do.
“When I hang a man,” declared Bhola Das, pressing his thick glasses to his nose, “the victim remains intact. Blood doesn’t ooze from his nostrils, from his ears or from his mouth. That’s the mark of the professional.”
“Tell me,” I intoned in a hushed voice, as the footsteps of a guard tramped past outside, “are there any secrets of the profession which have been passed on to you by your ancestors?”
Das nodded sagaciously, staring out at a pair of pigeons which were squatting on the window ledge.
“Yes,” he replied. “There are family secrets …”
“Could you tell me what they are?”
The hangman squinted.
“The secrets of which I speak are,” he said, “known only to me and to the man I execute.”
“Ah,” I winced, loosening my collar, “I understand. But isn’t there some meager tip you could give, to prove the care you take in your craft?”
Bhola Das rubbed his palms together.
“First,” he whispered, looking from right to left, “I lubricate the noose with a bar of soap. I make sure it gets into all the creases. This reduces friction. Then I rub it a second time, with a banana. Only after that can I be certain that the knot will slide easily. But,” continued the executioner in a low voice, “the most important thing is to weave a brass nut into the noose. While slipping the noose over the inmate’s head, I position the heavy nut at the side of the neck. As soon as the trap door opens, the nut swings round to the spinal cord and snaps it cleanly.