by Tahir Shah
“Half an hour later,” the hangman went on, “when I release the rope, there’s sometimes an eerie scream from the convict’s mouth – it’s just air escaping from the prisoner’s lungs.”
“Is hanging the only method of execution in West Bengal?”
“Unfortunately, it is. Four men were recently convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl, continued Das. “I was told to hang them. They ought to have been thrown into a cage of lions. The noose was too good for them!”
Bhola Das removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was an honorable man, maintaining the work of his forefathers.
“Do your children want to carry on the tradition?”
“Yes,” said Bhola Das. “My elder son wants to join the business. I have taught him how to twine a rope and craft a noose. He has helped me on some occasions. But,” imparted the hangman wearily, “he wants the position to pay more and to have better job security. Without that,” he whispered, “he says there’s no future for the profession.”
Armed with the valuable insider information, I thanked the aging executioner and summoned the guard to escort me from the prison. Bhola Das clasped his callused hands around mine and pressed his lips to my ear.
“If you ever require my services,” he murmured darkly, as I left, “please don’t hesitate to call upon me.”
That was an honest man, I reflected, as I trekked north up Baker Road towards the magician’s compound. He had inner strength, and was compassionate under testing circumstances. As for Bhola Das’s offer – it was hard to say whether I would ever need to avail myself of the private services of an executioner. But the offer, I pondered, would be good to keep in reserve … for a rainy day.
* * * *
It was with elation that I entered the Master’s mansion. I was eager to share my new-found insider information. But before making my report, I slipped up to my room to shower and change. Gokul’s assistant was polishing the brass carpet rods on the stairs. Climbing over him, I made my way up to the first-floor corridor. My bedroom was situated at its far end. Several other rooms led off the passageway. These were usually kept locked. Feroze was obsessed that they remain so. Noticing that the second door on the right was ajar, I was suspicious. Pushing it inward, I poked my head around the door.
The casual nature of my intrusion added to the surprise.
It was a young boy’s bedroom. A home-made model airplane was suspended from the ceiling; below it, a clutch of toy animals sat on the bed. A leather satchel was propped up against a chair, its buckles unfastened. A child’s sketches were pinned to one wall. The low desk was strewn with the elements of childhood. A catapult, a nest of marbles, cotton reels and a dismembered doll’s head. It might have been like any other boy’s bedroom. But it was not. The chamber was lit by a single bare red bulb. Its shutters had been closed like an iron visor, preventing daylight from penetrating in. A ghastly scarlet light filled the place.
Rattled by the sight, I stepped back to shut the door. But as I did so, I noticed a hunched figure sitting on a low stool with his eyes closed. It was Feroze. Surprisingly, he had not heard me. I tiptoed away.
When I had changed, I went out to the kitchen to find Gokul. Surely the Master’s veteran servant would explain the room’s mystery.
Gokul was busy roasting a ladle of spices over a gas flame.
“Hello, Sahib!” he said, without turning round.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Very noisy walker,” he snorted.
“Gokul … I’ve just seen something rather strange.”
“What strange?”
“There’s a bedroom upstairs with a red light in it. The Master is sitting there with his eyes closed.”
The manservant raised the ladle from the heat. He turned to face me.
“Long time ago,” he said tensely, “Master’s son and wife was killed.”
“How? How did it happen?”
Gokul rubbed both eyes with his left hand, and sniffed.
“They taking cycle rickshaw in Calcutta,” he said. “Rickshaw hit by gasoline tanker … Master Sahib has kept son bedroom same way. Today,” mumbled the servant, “anniversary of death.”
Leaving Gokul to his spices, I returned to the main house, my head hung low. The magician may have been my tormentor, but I was willing to agree a temporary truce. Was his venomous attitude to his pupils connected to the death of his wife and child?
An hour later, Feroze found me in the study, where I was combing a copy of Hobson-Jobson for magical feats. He was less vitalized than usual. His eyes were circled by heavy rings, his face was drawn and pale, and his clothes quite disheveled.
“How did you get on?” he asked, through gritted teeth.
“Well …” I began, snapping the book closed euphorically.
“Did you find me any insider information?”
I reflected on Alipore Jail and upon the secrets of Bhola Das – hereditary hangman of West Bengal. Should I explain first about the soap, the banana, or the brass nut which snaps the spine? I glanced at Feroze. He wasn’t his usual self. How could I discuss an executioner’s tips with a man whose family had themselves met such a terrible end?
“I'm so sorry,” I said, “but my stomach has been troubling me again. I’ll make sure to bring back a double dose of insider information tomorrow.”
* * * *
Next day, well before Gokul had shuffled up the passageway with a pot of milky tea, I had slunk out of the house. Today, I told myself, I am going to restore my reputation.
Early morning in Calcutta is a bewitching time. Like the back lot of a Hollywood film studio, it’s either teeming with people, or silent as a ghost ship. Calcutta is either off or on. It’s the only city on Earth with no half-way setting.
At six a.m. – like scene shifters and extras in a film – the first people saunter on to the set. They are well rested and prepared for another day of furious activity. Some scrape out the gutters, or scrub down the cobblestones, like studio janitors making ready for the arrival of the cast. Others set out dog-eared copies of Time and National Geographic on makeshift wooden stalls. Nearby, beggars hobble into position, bracing themselves for the crowds. Street-side astrologers prop up their hand-painted boards depicting the constellations; perfume-sellers dust down their carved glass bottles; toothpick vendors arrange their stock; pickpockets step stealthily into doorways. Fruit-sellers divide sour green oranges into clusters of six. Traffic policemen tighten their white steel helmets and climb up on to their rostra. Then – and only then – as if an invisible director has ordered filming to begin, Calcutta is switched on.
Within moments, the streets are choked with vehicles. The air boils with exhaust fumes. And the sidewalks are packed with shoals of people, jammed shoulder to shoulder like lambs in a wagon.
Nothing in Calcutta is so important as the sidewalk. Far more than mere conduits for pedestrians, the walkways are dormitories, typing bureaus, markets, cafes, doctors’ surgeries and umbrella repair shops, rolled into an endless profusion of activity. Calcutta’s sidewalks are wider than in most other cities, constructed by the British for a grand imperial capital. Twenty yards of Calcutta sidewalk has more on offer than entire countries. Plastic combs and squashy toys, shower caps in camellia pink, hard-boiled eggs in trays, reconditioned engine-blocks, Bakelite telephones, mothballs in sackcloth pouches, beetroot and jackfruit, dental floss and wooden legs, Zimmer frames and pogo sticks, turbines and theodolites.
* * * *
As I recoiled from the force of the morning invasion, I noticed a man squatting outside the Writer’s Building. He had no hands or feet. His stumps were well healed, their skin tight and smooth. Dozens of unfortunates beg on Lal Bazaar Street. But this man was wearing a pair of alien antennae – popular with party-goers about twenty years before. As I bent over him, he twanged one of the springs with his stump. The bloodshot eyeball at the end jangled about, revolving wildly.
“Yes, Sahib …” he exclaimed eagerly, real
izing that, as a customer from out of town, I was sure to buy the latest sensation. “Panch rupia, five rupees!”
“What would I use the apparatus for?”
“Very good-quality,” he stressed, “good price. I am crippling. No family. No money.”
I handed over the note and took the alien antennae. They might come in useful down the line, I thought. After all, this was Calcutta.
I tried on the tentacles for the first time. No one even looked round as I pushed through the crowds, the pair of demonic eyeballs jolting about above my head. Then I noticed a man waving at me from the far end of Lal Bazaar. Suspecting it to be another mendicant, impatient to make an easy sale, I turned and hurried off. But a grinding of wheels indicated that the man was in pursuit. Without looking round, I slipped down a side alley, my alien eyeballs flapping about like teasels in the wind. The wheels followed.
“All right,” I snarled, facing the pursuer. “What do you want?”
It was then I noticed that this was no cart-bound invalid, but a rickshawalla.
“Jadoowalla!” he shouted. “Remembering? Mister Magician …?”
The man spoke gibberish.
He was sleek as a gondola, barefoot and extremely lean. His torn saffron-colored vest revealed a scrawny back, pocked with dried sores, and with muscles as taut as a drum-skin. When standing still, his body swayed back and forth. He was very drunk indeed.
“What do you want?”
The man pointed at me, then the rickshaw, and then acted out a little sketch.
He was beginning to seem familiar.
“Aren’t you the rickshawalla who took me to Feroze’s house on that first day – you were the runner in Purulia, right?”
The rickshawalla tilted his head from one side to the other. “Haa, Sahib,” he said. “Runner. I am runner. Name … Venky.”
The rickshawalla cracked his knuckle joints, as if demonstrating his enduring strength.
“Where you want to go?” he asked, squinting.
“Well,” I said, “maybe you can help me.”
He shuffled forwards in concentration.
“I am looking for a special thing,” I explained. “I am searching for insider information.”
Venky the rickshawalla raised his eyebrows as high as he could, and swayed his head from left to right. It smelled as if he had taken a bath in chullu.
“Do you understand? I want to be taken to someone with insider information.”
The man patted the rickshaw’s seat with his leathery palm. I climbed up and we set off. He seemed to know where he was going.
Dodging the onslaught of taxis, juggernauts, and a great caravan of marching bandsmen, who were out drumming up business, the rickshawalla scuttled towards the Bow Bazaar. The market is famous for selling fine jewelry, produced in cramped back work-rooms behind each shop. The larger emporia have resident astrologers, advising on the appropriate design of jewelry.
Without warning, Venky dug his heels into the dirt and pointed to a cow. The animal, which had a wreath of flowers around its neck, was tied to a post. Beside it was a middle-aged woman, dressed in a simple white sari, tied in the Bengali way.
“How can an animal have insider information?”
The rickshawalla hesitated.
“No understand,” he said.
“Then why did you bring me to this cow?”
Venky stuck out his lower lip, revealing his gums. We had only just met, but somehow it was as if I had known him all my life.
“Well, since we’re here, can you ask the woman what she uses her cow for?”
Promoted from rickshawalla to translator, Venky struck up a conversation with the woman. She held up a bunch of rough grass stems and he slurred a number of disjointed questions.
‘”She says,” began Venky in his best English, “people paying little bit money feed cow.”
“Why do people want to pay to feed the cow?”
“Feed cow lucky,” responded the rickshawalla.
“Does the woman own the cow?”
Again, Venky chattered away in animated conversation.
“Haa,” he said after some time, “she not own cow. Milking man own cow. She is paying milking man for cow in day.”
“You mean that the woman hires the cow each day, once the milkman’s finished with it, and she lets strangers pay her money to feed it?”
Venky thought for a moment. Then he smiled.
“Yes, Sahib … very good!”
The genius of the arrangement bore the unrivaled hallmark of Calcutta. Where else could you find such an ingenious system? The milkman milks the cow and then, instead of looking after it all day, gives it to a woman who pays him for the privilege of looking after the animal. Far from being left out of pocket, the woman charges people to feed the creature a few strands of grass. In turn, the cow’s devotees attain a sense of inner calm from their charity. The woman sells the dung to fuel-brick makers as a profitable side-line. This was even better than the baby rental.
“Venky,” I said, as Mehboob’s Marching Band engulfed us like a sea of crude oil, “you’re a genius!”
Buoyed by the early success of Bow Bazaar, I set my sights on the street’s other professionals. If a humble cow could reveal such hidden wonders, then what could be waiting for me further along the street?
But even before I had a chance to put away my notebook, Venky pointed at a group of men cleaning out the gutters beside his rickshaw’s wheel. “Ghamelawalla!” he cried.
“What are you saying? What’s a Ghamelawalla?”
The rickshaw-puller was perplexed that I should not understand the term.
“Ghamelawalla,” he repeated, “gold-sweeper!”
“Venky,” I said, “you’re obviously wrong. These men are gutter cleaners. Look – they’re sweeping up all the dirt and heaving it on to a metal cart.”
The rickshawalla wagged a finger.
“Ghamelawalla, looking for gold,” he said.
With Venky translating, I resigned myself to the fact that seeking out the truth might be a slow, uphill task. His English was limited. It was like deciphering a garbled tape-recording made under water. I put his wavering linguistic ability down to the flask of opaque liquid stored in the pouch around his neck.
Bow Bazaar is a street of astounding financial wealth. Bearing this in mind, it wasn’t unreasonable that people should be dredging the gutters for gold. Renewing my faith in the man who had brought me the cow keeper’s secret, I licked my pencil.
Gold dealers in the West value the dirt swept from workshop floors. An old Hasid jeweler in Manhattan once told me he had sold the antique floorboards from his factory. Their purchaser incinerated the planks to extract the gold dust which had worked its way into the crevices over the years. But as I came to realize, the clan of the ghamelawallas, Calcutta’s unofficial army of gold-scroungers, put even the great recyclers of New York to shame.
Taking their name from their ghamela, heavy iron pans, the city’s ghamelawallas begin work in the middle of the night. Long before the bazaar’s jewelers are open for business, they turn up to sweep out the workshops. Like the tiny birds which peck the teeth inside crocodile mouths, ghamelawallas perform a vital, if not uncelebrated, service. Every grain of dust is meticulously collected. Handing the business’ owner a few rupees, the precious dirt is taken away to be treated.
Many ghamelawallas make their homes on the streets of Calcutta. Nearly all are migrant workers, with wives and children who they see once a year. Most begin their careers as apprentice ghamelawallas, arriving to work alongside their fathers at the age of six or seven. They sleep on charpoys, rope beds, in alleyways, and wash at hand-pumps. Wander the back-streets near the Bow Bazaar and you’ll see them sitting on the sidewalks, toiling over the jewelers’ dirt. Mixed amid the jumble of sidewalk life, one could easily dismiss the huddle of squatting figures without a second glance. But like so many in Calcutta, the ghamelawallas are masters of creating a living from almost nothing. The tatt
ered sweepers, squatting at shin-level perform an intricate scientific procedure.
First, the scraps of paper and straw and larger pieces of garbage are removed. These will be sold later to ruddiwallas, “rag-pickers.” Then the actual dirt is washed in clean water. When it has been swilled about, a few drops of nitric acid are added. This dissolves all the metals except for the gold. The residue is then treated with a solution of barium, which amalgamates the gold particles. After this, the remaining compound is burned in a crucible, on a choolah, a small stove. As miniature hand-driven bellows blast air into the embers, a tiny nugget of gold is formed at the base of the crucible.
Some other Indian cities have ghamelawallas as well. But those in Calcutta dismiss their rivals as impostors. For nowhere on Earth has recycling been taken to such exalted levels as in Calcutta. Whereas ghamelawallas working in, say, Mumbai, treat the salvaged dirt once, their fellow gold-seekers in Calcutta are far more ingenious. When the initial burning is over, the first group of ghamelawallas sells the dirt from which they have extracted gold to another group of ghamelawallas. More impoverished than the first, the second group repeats the process, removing even more minute traces of the precious metal. These ghamelawallas sell the dust on to yet another team of washers, who pan it on the banks of the Hoogly. When they are finished with the dust, they peddle it to builders, who turn it into bricks.
By late morning, when the first set of ghamelawallas have done their round of the workshops, they turn their attentions to the gutters of the inimitable Bow Bazaar. Armed with hard brushes, they scrub the dirt from the streets and cart it away to process. Before they leave to rest in the scorching afternoons, the ghamelawallas set up a complex network of miniature dams to prevent any of the valuable dirt from seeping down into the sewers. But, this being Calcutta, another regiment of ghamelawallas are on hand to trawl the sewers at night. If too much garbage piles up for them to treat, they simply sub-contract the work.
Straining to translate the intricate lore of the ghamelawallas, Venky muttered that one lakh, a hundred thousand, people work as freelance ghamelawallas in Calcutta. If each is making, say, twenty rupees a day – and works eleven months out of twelve – then between them, Calcutta’s gold-sweepers alone must be bringing in more than thirteen million pounds a year. Not bad for making money from nothing. As they say in Calcutta, “Ak janar chai, annyar sona” – “One man’s waste, another man’s gold.”