Srikanta

by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay

  I took the sick man on my back and proceeded to the quarantine camp. Abhaya followed, carrying what she could—a small tin box. The rest of our luggage was left where it lay but, fortunately, nothing was lost. We had it brought to us later the same day.

  Looking back on the quarantine I’m forced to admit that the reality was much better than our expectations. Barring a few initial difficulties, life in the quarantine shed was not unendurable. This was almost entirely due to Abhaya’s efforts and the fact that money can buy comfort even in hell. The doctor had called her ‘forward’ from the little he had seen of her in the boat. He had no idea of how ‘forward’ she could be when the need really arose. For all practical purposes my work was over the moment I deposited the sick man at the entrance of the encampment. After that she took over.

  ‘You are tired and deserve a rest, Srikanta Babu,’ she said! ‘You’ve done your bit. Now I’ll do what needs to be done.’

  I was tired. My legs shook under me and the sweat ran in streams down my head and back. Nevertheless, I asked, ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Goodness! There’s heaps of work. First I must send someone to fetch our luggage. Then I must get hold of a good room, get it cleaned, make the beds and cook a meal. No, no! Don’t get up. I’ll get everything organized in a few minutes.’ Saying this she turned and walked purposefully in the direction of the quarantine office.

  Within half an hour a chaprasi came and escorted us to the room in which we were to stay. I looked around and was pleasantly surprised. It was a fair-sized room, airy and well ventilated. A British lady doctor was getting it cleaned under her personal supervision. Two string-cots stood against the walls with bedding spread on them. Our luggage had arrived and was neatly stacked in one corner. Bags of rice and lentils, flour, potatoes, ghee and firewood and even new vessels for cooking, were piled in the other. Abhaya was talking energetically, in broken Hindi, to a South Indian doctor.

  She turned on seeing us approach. ‘Rest for a while,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a quick bath and get a meal going. A rice and dal khichri will do for now.’ She picked up her gamchha (indigenous towel) and sari and bowing deferentially to the lady doctor walked away with a sailor in tow.

  The days of our quarantine, organized as they were by Abhaya, passed pleasantly enough. But, surprisingly, I didn’t get to know her any better than I had on the boat. I noticed that her attitude to me had something contradictory in it. On the one hand she would not allow the slightest thread of intimacy to develop between us. Something about her manner stood stark and forbidding like a stone wall reminding me every moment that we were merely passengers in transit awaiting the arrival of our destinations and that, once there, we would be as nothing to one another. On the other, she looked after my creature comforts as tenderly as if I were the closest of relatives. She would take all the hardest tasks upon herself. If I offered to help, she would laugh and say, ‘Let me do it. After all, I am responsible for the situation we are in. Neither you nor Rohini Dada would have been here if it weren’t for me.’ Her intelligence and capacity for action made me wonder at her husband. But I was certain that, once she found him, he would learn to value her. For, brute though he was, he was a man, and what man would spurn such an asset?

  Then, one day, the quarantine was over. By the time we got our permits, Rohini Babu was fully recovered and we set out together for Rangoon. It was decided that I would help them to find suitable accommodation before I went my way. I also promised Abhaya that I would try my best to seek out her husband.

  The day of our arrival in Rangoon coincided with that of an important Burmese festival. The streets were thronged with votaries, dressed in bright silks, on their way to and from the temple. There was a predominance of women, for the Burmese do not confine their women to the zenana as we do in India. Old, young and middle aged were dressed alike in vibrant colours with flowers in their hair, behind their ears and around their necks. Many of them were beautiful with complexions of pale gold and luxurious hair falling well below the knees. They were all bareheaded and completely free in their movements. Laughing, chattering and singing, they surged up and down the streets like cascades of colour.

  I was charmed. This is as it should be, I thought. I couldn’t help comparing them to Indian women and wondering what we had gained by depriving them of the freedom that their Burmese sisters enjoyed. Were we any happier in our women than the Burmese men were in theirs? Could they spread the sweetness and light that the latter did so freely and spontaneously? ‘Far from it,’ I thought, with a stab of envy. ‘If our women could only break their shackles and stand equal to men ….’

  My train of thought was rudely interrupted by a commotion just behind me. I turned around. Three women had just descended from a carriage and were arguing with the coachman about the fare. The latter—an Indian Mussalman—kept repeating that he had asked for eight annas while the passengers insisted, loudly and harshly, that five annas was the fare they had settled. Within a few minutes the argument got beyond the verbal. Screaming with fury the three fair ladies darted to a barrow piled high with sugar cane and, snatching up lengths of cane, began raining blows on the hapless coachman’s head and back. The poor man, unused to hitting out at women, tried to ward off the blows first with one arm then with the other while a crowd of spectators looked on interestedly. Off flew his turban as a blow descended, with a thwack, on his head. His whip clattered on the pavement and was crushed to splinters under the feet of the agitated ladies.

  Finally, unable to bear it any longer, the man fled screaming, ‘Police! Police!’ while the crowd jeered and clapped their hands in appreciation.

  Newly arrived from an obscure village of Bengal I had only heard of female emancipation—never seen it. I was amazed, for the idea that emancipation enabled women of decent families to attack a strong hulk of a man and beat him black and blue in full public view, had never entered my head. I was so shocked by what I had seen that I stood and stared blankly at the thinning crowd. Then, collecting myself with an effort, I went my way.

  Six

  I STAYED WITH ABHAYA AND ROHINI BABU FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS in their new lodgings before starting out to look for my own. I helped them to settle down as I had promised but the situation repelled me and I was eager to escape. I told myself, over and over again, that all may not be as it appears on the surface, and that intricate relationships of this type are often misunderstood. Did not my own past experience bear this out? Nevertheless, as I stepped out on to the streets of Rangoon one fine morning, I felt curiously free and light-hearted.

  At the time that I’m writing about, Bengalis, newly arrived in Rangoon, were not hunted down as they are today to be cross-examined and humiliated by policemen in plain clothes and uniform. I remember that I wandered around all morning, then, bumping into a man who looked like a Bengali, I asked him the way to Nanda Mistri’s house. The man stopped and scrutinized my face long and earnestly.

  ‘Which Nanda?’ he said at last. ‘Are you looking for Nanda Pagodi of Ribit?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He told me he was the famous Nanda Mistri of Rangoon.’

  ‘Mistri!’ the man made a face. ‘Everyone calls himself a mistri these days. Do you know how many anonymous letters Bara Saheb got when Marcott Saheb said to me, “Haripada, you are the only worker who deserves to be called mistri”? A hundred. A hundred anonymous letters! But could they damage my reputation in the least? Aré, if you know how to hold a saw, if you can cut first and join afterwards—who can come in your way? But the trouble is—’

  I realized that I had touched the man in a vulnerable spot and that he would continue to expatiate on the glories of being a true mistri for several hours if I didn’t stop him.

  ‘Then you don’t know him—’ I interrupted.

  ‘Of course I know him. I’ve been in Rangoon these forty years. I know everybody. But there are three Nandas in Rangoon. Which one do you want?’ Then peering into my face, he said, ‘You are a newcomer aren’t you? Fr
om Bengal? Oh! I know which Nanda. You want Tagar’s man—don’t you?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ I said, relieved.

  ‘Well! Come along with me, then. How can I help you if you don’t give me the details?’ he grumbled, then went on, ‘He’s lucky to be making a living—that Nanda. But to call himself a mistri—’

  He then asked me my caste and, on learning that I was a Brahmin, stopped and touched my feet. ‘Has Nanda promised you a job?’ he asked curiously. ‘Well! he may be able to find you one. But he’ll expect two months’ salary as commission. Can you manage that?’

  I assured him that I was not seeking out Nanda in order to ask him for a job. ‘He promised to find me a lodging,’ I said. ‘We came on the ship together.’

  Haripada Mistri looked startled. ‘Nanda promised to find you a place to stay? Where? You are a gentleman. Why don’t you stay in the mess?’

  ‘I don’t know where it is.’

  The man looked crestfallen. He didn’t know either, he admitted, but he would make enquiries and let me have the information by evening. ‘You won’t find Nanda in his room at this hour. He’ll be at the workshop. And Tagar will be sleeping with her door bolted. And,’ he stopped and threw me a searching look, ‘if you knock on her door and wake her up, all hell will break loose.’

  I knew that quite well and was not prepared to risk it.

  ‘Why don’t you go to Da Thakur’s place for the day?’ the man urged. ‘Have a bath, a meal and a good rest. You can meet Nanda in the evening.’

  We reached the hotel around ten-thirty. About fifteen men of the working class were assembled in the dining-room to eat the first meal of their day. The hotel was located at one end of the city. On three sides of an enormous stretch of land, workshops and sheds stood in neat orderly lines. On the fourth, one in a row of wooden hutments, was Da Thakur’s hotel. This area, known as the mistri palli (locality) of Rangoon, as I came to know later, was a curious place. A vast number of people—Chinese, Burmese, Madrasis, Oriyas, Mussalmans from Chattogram and Bengalis from Calcutta and its environs—lived squashed together in it and followed a variety of occupations. They appeared to be a homogeneous lot despite their squabbles and rivalries. It was by living among them that I first learned that what we call samskar is not founded upon rock and can easily be shed.

  Two English words ‘instinct’ and ‘prejudice’ together make up the full meaning of the word samskar. One is not the other—that of course is obvious. That the strongest of our samskars—the caste bias—is not instinctive and can easily be overcome, was revealed to me that very first day at Da Thakur’s hotel. I was amazed at the discovery. I realized that many of us, who wear the shackles of caste imposed upon us through centuries of mandatory compartmentalization, happily, even proudly, in the conviction that we are upholding and handing down to posterity worthwhile systems of thought and action, discard them with the greatest ease the moment we enter an area where they have no relevance. The belief that to go to England is to lose caste, because stepping on English soil and partaking of beef are inseparable, has been bred into us so thoroughly that we accept it without question. Not even the strictest vegetarian is exempted, for, as the guardians of Hinduism rigidly maintain, to eat or not to eat is one and the same. Yet ninety per cent of the passengers to Rangoon, Brahmins for the most part, (Brahmins being notoriously greedy in this age and time) have no qualms about eating hearty meals from the ship’s kitchen before they set foot on Burmese soil. Do they ever question what is being served by the Mussalman and Goan cooks? Or if what they eat is kept at a careful distance from what is forbidden? If any of them had the courage to peep into the cold room of the ship, as I have done, they would have seen that everything from milk and bananas to pork and beef are piled indiscriminately, one on top of another. But let us not quarrel with our blessings. Let us be thankful rather, that the necessity for a codicil to include the passage to Burma among the areas of ostracism has not occurred to our caste killers as yet.

  Da Thakur received me with great deference and, leading me to a little tumbledown shed, said, ‘You may stay here as long as you like and have your meals in the hotel. You need not pay till you get yourself a job.’

  ‘How do you know I won’t disappear without paying? You are seeing me for the first time.’

  Da Thakur touched his forehead and wagged his head solemnly. ‘What will be will be. You cannot take my fate away with you. Can you?’

  ‘No. I have no need of it,’ I said.

  That his implicit faith in his destiny was justified was amply proved when, four or five months later, he disappeared from Rangoon, taking away with him several hundred rupees, rings, watches and other valuables that his clients had entrusted to his safe keeping, leaving the latter to knock their heads on the empty floor of the hotel. But that was much later. For the present his words fell soothingly on my ears and his proposition, in view of my straitened circumstances, was like a boon from heaven.

  At dusk, a young Bengali serving maid came into my room and, setting a square of matting and a glass of water on the floor, got ready to serve me my evening meal.

  ‘Why do you serve me here?’ I asked. ‘Why not with the others in the dining-room?’

  ‘They are mechanics, Babu,’ she answered. ‘How can you eat in their company?’

  ‘Who knows what work I’ll get? I may have to work as a mechanic myself. From tomorrow I’ll eat in the dining-room.’

  ‘You are a Brahmin. It is not proper for you to eat with them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They are Bengalis and Hindus—it is true. But there is a Dom among them.’

  A Dom! In Bengal Doms are treated as untouchables. If you happen to touch one of them you are forced to bathe before entering the house. Even in the most flexible households a change of clothes and a dash of gangajal on the head is insisted upon.

  ‘What about the others?’ I asked.

  ‘They are from better castes. There are Kayasthas, Sadgopes, Kamars, Goalas, and Kaibartas among them.’

  ‘Don’t they object to a Dom eating with them?’

  The girl smiled. ‘We are in Burma, Babu—seven seas away from our native land. Who cares to guard his caste here as carefully as in Bengal? Once they go back they’ll take a dip in the Ganga and eat cow-dung as penance. Then all will be as it was.’

  I did not doubt her words at the time. But, subsequently, I realized how wrong she was. Many years later, back in Bengal, I had the good fortune of seeing many Indians returning from Burma. Some of them did take a casual dip in the Ganga but not one—and I maintain, not one—took the trouble of eating cow-dung or performing any other kind of expiatory rite. It was obvious that their brief exposure to a foreign country and culture was sufficient to successfully wipe away the generations of conditioning with which they had gone. I noticed that there were two hookahs in the hotel—one for Brahmins, the other for non-Brahmins. The second one passed from the hand of a Karmakar to that of a Goala, from a Dom to a Sadgope with the utmost ease.

  A couple of days after I arrived at the hotel I asked a Karmakar, ‘Don’t you lose caste by smoking the same hookah with a Dom?’

  ‘Of course we do.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘He didn’t tell us he was a Dom when he first came. He said he was a Kaibarta—’

  ‘But when you realized that he was a Dom—didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘What could we say? It was very wrong of him to have deceived us, but if we told him we knew the truth he would have died of shame. So we went on pretending we knew nothing.’

  ‘Is such a situation possible in your native village?’

  ‘Oh! no.’ The man trembled at the thought. ‘But you know what? Leaving Brahmins aside—they are varna srestha and there is no comparison—the other castes are not so different from one another. Who can tell the difference between a Nabasakh and a Dom or a Goala and a Sadgope? And, after all, we are all God’s creatures. We’ve all left our homes and families and com
e out to this heathen land to earn our living. And if one goes by behaviour—Hari Mandal may be a Dom but he is honest and sober. He doesn’t touch ganja or liquor. And look at the Kayastha Lakshman! If we hadn’t saved him he would have been serving a sentence. What good would his high caste have done him then? He would have had to eat at the hands of sweepers.’

  The man went his way leaving me wondering at the psyche of the expatriate Hindu. How could a land like ours, in which even the educated upper class devoted itself almost exclusively to seeking out and exposing the weaknesses of others, produce men like the Karmakar and his fellows—men who were liberal enough to forgive an errant colleague for robbing them of their caste, and sensitive enough to empathize with his shame and sorrow? The secret lay, no doubt, in their movement away from the stagnant cesspools of their native villages and their efforts to build a future in a land where caste is unknown. ‘Mental mobility is the natural sequel of physical mobility,’ I thought, ‘and together they could be the making of our people.’

  I did, however, find a distinct absence of the former in one area. The distrust of the lower classes for the educated upper class is as firmly embedded in the consciousness of the Rangoon mechanic as it is in that of his social equal in India. I have lived among these people for many years and have marvelled at this inconsistency. As long as they thought me an uneducated worker like themselves, they treated me like a friend and involved themselves in my welfare. But the moment they realized that I was educated and knew English, they withdrew silently but surely. They still came to me for advice but they didn’t love me or trust me because the conviction that I, as a member of the educated upper class, despised them, had remained unshaken. It was this obsessive fear in them that frustrated me in many of my endeavours for their upliftment and welfare.