Bioscope Man

by Indrajit Hazra

  It was Chambers who met Jones that very afternoon at the court and suggested they meet and discuss the formation of a club of sorts whose purpose would be to discuss, explore and understand the language and culture and tradition of the Hindus. Jones was always suspicious of clubs. But there was, this time, a strong reason for a group of like-minded Englishmen to meet regularly and do something that would benefit civilization and society. It was a shame that people like Alexander Dow had been the only providers of accounts of life in India. Jones had read Dow’s abominable Drury House publication Zingis, a poetic tragedy that provided ample fodder for Dr Johnson’s literary club. Zingis was astoundingly wrong in its description of life here, peppering only some basic pages with anything remotely looking or smelling like a fact. Somebody had to correct this picture of India for people back in England.

  In any case, there was also a desperate need to understand the country for professional reasons.

  ‘How should Hindus be examined in court? Can Brahmans give absolution for perjury? Should Hindus swear by the Ganges or any other holy thing or word? Chambers,’ Jones had said while stirring his cup of tea, ‘these are the questions we should resolve sooner rather than later.’

  And then, there was the whole business of knowing this country. And such knowledge was certainly not going to be found in the deplorable chitter-chatter about Emma Wrangham and Madame Grand and the sooty bibis who seemed to be running the social life of the town. Knowing did not mean fanning fans more furiously to catch the latest news of the ‘shocking case of William Hunter and three mutilated maidens’, or any other scandalous gossip peddled by the papers. Jones had let out a violent spurt of air through his nostrils when he came across the following item of news in the Bengal Gazette:

  On Monday night, Rajah Nobkissen gave a nautch and magnificent entertainment to several persons of distinction in commemoration of Miss Wrangham’s birthday. As the ladies arrived, they were conducted by the Rajah through a grand suite of apartments into the zenana, where they were amused until the singing began, which was so mellifluous as to give every face a smile of approbation. The surprising agility of one of the male dancers occasioned loud acclamations of applause.

  ‘After supper there was a ball which was opened by Mr Livius and Miss Wrangham, who were dressed in the characters of Apollo and Daphne. When the minuets were ended, country dances struck up and continued till past three in the morning, when the company departed highly pleased with the elegant festival. And when the Rajah was attending Miss Wrangham to her carriage, he thanked her in very polite terms for having illuminated his house with her bright appearance.

  Jones had thrown the Gazette on the floor, almost barking at the servant when he came to put it back in its rightful place. And to think that this was the place that he had desperately wanted to come to! It was the same Raja Nabakrishna Deb, the howling fool of Calcutta, who had donated land to build the new St John’s Church. No one seemed to mind that the land had been used earlier for Christian burials, thus exposing the fact that the Raja’s gesture was hardly the great act of charity that it was being made out to be. Jones knew that Calcutta needed a church. St Anne’s had been destroyed by the mutineers and the city had been left practically churchless for the last thirty years. But to build a sacred house on a spot where till recently there was a gunpowder magazine yard and a burial ground was sacrilegious.

  It seemed that the city was devoid of a single Christian soul. The moment Jones had heard about Nabakrishna’s gesture, he had made his decision known: he was not going to contribute an anna to the St John’s building fund. If he had any influence in the courtroom, he would see to it that no money was donated by any of his fellow Supreme Court Judges!

  So, leaving the painted circus of Calcutta behind, if only for a few weeks at a time, meant a lot to Jones. Retreating to Krishnagar had also done a lot of good to Anna Maria’s health, which hadn’t been too good since she landed in the blood-boiling city nearly a year ago.

  But as he sat here, waiting for Anna Maria to return from the garden where she was still drawing pictures of the various plants she had discovered, Jones couldn’t help but think that there were monkeys even here, in Krishnagar. He was now in the company of Brahmans, hoping that one of the many scholars here would agree to give him lessons in Sanskrit grammar.

  It had been Wilkins’s idea that he seek out someone in this scholarly town in Nadia. Wilkins was one of the few people in Calcutta that Jones could actually talk to. He had also managed to get Jones a copy of the legal code of Manu, the starting point for any Englishman planning to understand Hindu law. But poor Wilkins was not suited for the wet heat of Bengal and had had to move northwards to Benares. The two of them continued to correspond with each other, but Jones sorely missed his fellow scholar’s company. Wilkins was especially missed after the Asiatic Society was up and running. His contributions at the seven o’clock Thursday meetings in the Grand Jury Room would have been valued.

  Even as he was thinking about all this, the man sitting on his right had not stopped talking. In fact, he hadn’t even slowed down. His name, Jones had barely been able to make out in the clutter of the other introductions, was Pandit Gangaram. It had been obvious from the moment the Brahmans had arrived that this Gangaram was keen on making his point of view very clear: Sanskrit was not a language for firingis. He hadn’t, of course, used the word ‘firingi’; he had said ‘Ingrej’. But the tone was very clear. For the last half-hour–or was it more?–Gangaram had been arguing how every language is specific to a people, ‘like death rites and marriage ceremonies’. One could pick up ‘the skin’ of a language, but it would only rot when placed on the ‘blood and bones of a different people’.

  Jones had invited a dozen or so local scholars to his house. He had made his request plain. He would pay a handsome amount for his tuition. All he wanted was to learn the grammar and the literature in enough detail so he could make do without secondary material written by Europeans who clearly knew Sanskrit only very superficially. At one level, he didn’t blame the Nadia scholars for believing that an Englishman learning Sanskrit was a hopeless task. But at another level, he was sure that, with the right help, he could correct that notion and unlock some secrets that remained hidden even to the Brahmans of this country.

  Wilkins had mentioned the name of one Ramlochan Sharma. But upon gentle inquiry, Jones was told by the scholars that Ramlochan Sharma was not a Pandit, but a physician. In other words, he was a Baidya, a non-Brahman and therefore a non-scholar. And yet, Wilkins had brought up the name because the physician-Pandit had a reputation of being an outstanding, although unorthodox, interpreter of Sanskrit texts.

  Apart from Wilkins’ recommendation, Jones had heard the non-Brahman Pandit’s name in the context of jurisprudence. It was Ramlochan Sharma who had created a ruckus some years ago when he, according to sources, helped the ‘illiterate’ widow of the Raja of Bardhaman take over her late husband’s zamindari. It had reached Jones’s ear even in London that the Permanent Settlement Act had been hurriedly passed so as to protect the Company and its native sympathizers from ‘clever Hindu minds’ like ‘a Pundit Ramalocan’. It was even said at the Serjeants’ that Warren Hastings had personally made a deal with this Krishnagar scholar.

  But Ramlochan Sharma had not responded to his invitation. Instead, there were the Gangarams of the world, their nominal representative having proceeded at some point to read out one of his own works, a long poem he had written about the Maratha raids forty years ago. Jones vaguely caught the last line of the aural torture: ‘So Bhaskar was killed at Monkora camp, and Gangaram has fulfilled his wish and told his story.’

  He took a short bow and sat back on his low stool.

  ‘I was there in Pandua when the Bargis raided Bardhaman. So everything I’ve written here is a historical account of what happened,’ he said with his eyebrows arched.

  Jones nodded.

  ‘That’s rubbish, Gangaram. That poem of yours is based on as much tr
uth as a Mussalman bases his prayer on pork fat.’

  The whole room looked up at the doorway from where the voice came. It was a voice that was not used to loudness and its edges were clearly strained. From where he was, Jones could only see a silhouette, a slight figure bordered and inked in with black. But as his eyes adjusted, he could see a small face suited to its small frame, frowning and smiling at the same time.

  ‘And how do you know that, Ramlochan?’ Gangaram responded, barely able to cover up the fact that his body was shaking like a leaf in a kalbaishakhi storm.

  ‘You never set your foot anywhere near Bardhaman when the Bargis came, Gangaram, if people are to believe Raja Tilakchand. And your limping verse actually says that the Bargi raids were divine punishment for immorality and licentiousness becoming the norm among the people? Bah! And you’ve clearly stolen lines from Vidyalankara’s Chitracampu. And if you could read Persian, I’m sure you wouldn’t have hesitated to lift chunks from Ghulam Hussain Khan’s Siyar-ul-Mutakherin.’

  Jones’s grasp of Bengali was weak, but he could understand the nature of the taunt being made. The whole room was now bursting with angry shouts and had become combustible.

  ‘Now gentlemen,’ Jones stood up and addressed the crowd in broken Bengali. ‘I must remind you why I had invited all of you here. There is no need to lose …’ he searched the word, he searched the Bengali word … ‘control.’

  A hush descended, but Jones knew that it was no use after this to sit down and hope for a civilized encounter. He waited for everyone to face him before he could make an announcement. Even the newcomer looked at him. He had no choice but to end the disastrous meeting. But Gangaram pre-empted his announcement.

  ‘Thank you, William-saheb, for your hospitality. But I think my colleagues and I would rather go now. We have Durga pujo arrangements to attend to, unlike someone here. Shall we go, Chandi-pandit?’

  They all namaskared Jones and filed out of the house one by one. Jones was slightly taken aback at the suddenness with which the proceedings had screeched to a halt. He didn’t want to offend the learned men and saw them to the door. When he returned to the room, ready to put his feet up and gauge the damages, he heard the straggler speak.

  ‘I apologize for driving your guests away. But it was a waste of time, truly,’ he said in self-conscious English.

  ‘Pandit Ramlochan Sharma, I presume? You don’t get along too well with the folks in town, I see,’ Jones said, not able to repress a small, tired smile.

  ‘I’m willing to teach you. But will you learn here or will I have to be in Calcutta?’

  ‘Here in Krishnagar. My wife and I plan to spend four months of the year here. I hope that suits you.’

  ‘That would be better for me. I teach a few youngsters Sanskrit, Bengali and English here.’

  The conversation meandered into matters at hand, the texts that the student would need to master as well as the schedule that suited both teacher and student. Jones sensed that there was more that the Pandit had in mind. But he restricted himself to recounting his scholastic background, his methods of teaching and the need to stay away from the works of the other scholars, ‘to avoid the risks of becoming wrapped in empty theology’. That suited Jones. In fact, the man suited him more than he had bargained for.

  It turned out that the Pandit had learnt his English from a John Andrews, who was known to the Bengali print-maker Panchanan Karmakar, who in turn was well acquainted with Charles Wilkins. It was with Panchanan’s help that Wilkins had printed Halhed’s Bengali Grammar, the first book using the Bengali typeface. Surely, this was a sign that Pandit Ramlochan was the right man for the job. And what was the job that Jones had in mind? To go down into the very heart of the beast and peer into its soul by using the rope of language. The sinewy, strong rope that was Sanskrit.

  Anna Maria had just walked into the house.

  ‘Anna, I want you to meet Pandit Ramlochan Sharma. He will be my Sanskrit tutor.’

  Neither Anna Maria nor her husband would have known what went through the Pandit’s head as she set down her drawing book and dipped her head in acknowledgement of the guest’s presence.

  Bakulakalikâlalâlamani kalakanthîkalakalâkule kâle |

  Kalayâ kalâvato ’pi hi kalayati kalitâstratâm madanah ||

  If he had been able to hear the words darting inside the Pandit’s head in one unbroken loop, Jones would have recognized the lines a few weeks later, when he learnt from Ramlochan the old grammarian’s memory tool. Jones himself would go on to translate the lines a year later as:

  Madan, the god of love, uses even the spots of the moon as his beautiful weapon when the bakul plant shines with new buds and the cuckoos and women with melodious voices fill the air with their enchanting sounds.

  William Jones was now dead, and there was no escape from the open hostility unleashed on Ramlochan by the Brahmans of Krishnagar. Before leaving, Panchanan had suggested that he move with him to Calcutta. There would be something he could manage—if not in the service of the Company then in the household of some knowledge-seeking babu. Ramlochan knew, of course, that things no longer allowed even that.

  It had all started coming apart six months ago, when there had been a loud rap on his door accompanied by a louder string of abuse. It was Kuli’s forever intoxicated father. Ramlochan, a late riser, took his time unhinging the bar from the door. Jadab, incredibly, wasn’t tottering or letting off his characteristic fumes. Five or six people were standing behind him.

  ‘What is it? I don’t do visits any more. Go to another physician … is it an emergency?’ Ramlochan was still bloated with sleep.

  He should have recognized that there was something wrong in the faces of his early morning visitors. The air between him and the men outside was swirling, dancing about just that bit for an alert man to notice the violence building up in it. Not being the alert man he should have been, Ramlochan explained the shimmer in the air as a product of his gummy, clenched vision.

  ‘Ramlochan, you better come out!’

  Now that was an odd request—considering that Ramlochan had unbolted the door and was facing the irate Jadab-led mob. Perhaps they were referring to his position of having one foot inside and one foot outside the raised line of patted earth that was the threshold of his functional house. He crossed over sluggishly.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  Jadab, with his hay-munching face, was taken aback. He and the others had met in the courtyard of the Krishna temple just as the sun was dissolving the night, practising what they would say. Ishwar and Bhabani, two young strapping lads, had been chosen to drag Ramlochan out of the house in case he resisted.

  ‘Well … I, we …’ Kuli’s father muttered. He then turned his head towards the others standing behind him.

  Chandiprasad Gupta, one of the town’s Brahmans who had always found Ramlochan teaching the sacred language outrageous, stepped forward. He touched one of Jadab’s moderately broad farmer shoulders, giving the signal that he would do the talking. Chandi had the ability of conjuring up a pool of darkness around him when required. In the weak light of that morning, he had stepped out of the group, brought his bird nose within inches of Ramlochan’s face and covered the immediate vicinity where both of them stood with his portable shadow.

  ‘Ramlochan. What Kuli’s father is trying to tell you is that you have been conducting the most shameful activities with his daughter. I had told Jadab not to send Kuli to your house. But this drunkard never did listen. Your filth has no place in this town. Leave us and conduct your firingi habits in the big city.’

  ‘We Pandits,’ Chandi continued, clenching his teeth to emphasize that the word meant different things to different people, ‘had warned you, not once, not twice, but thrice about not making a fool of yourself by setting up a school here in Krishnagar. Don’t think we didn’t know why you had all those children come over to your school. Your sickness will not be tolerated, Ramlochan. Not after you’ve been caught preying on an innocent chi
ld. You have till the end of this month to get out of this town. Show your face in Krishnagar again and we’ll use scriptural laws that judges in Calcutta have no inkling of.’

  By now, Ramlochan was wide awake.

  ‘There is nothing I have done to Kuli. What do you think I’ve done with her?’

  He took a few steps forward as he spoke, careful to close the door shut as he faced Chandi Pandit.

  Pandit Chandiprasad Gupta was an intelligent man. Unlike most of his fellow scholars in Krishnagar, he knew an intelligent man when he saw one. If he answered Ramlochan’s challenging query and actually uttered the unspeakable crime that he was guilty of, he would be sinning himself. To describe, or even give a name to Ramlochan’s lascivious activities before non-Brahmans was as shameful as the activities themselves. Also, describing his crime in Sanskrit—as was prescribed in situations like this, to keep smut out of untrained ears—would amount to acknowledging that the Baidya Ramlochan was indeed a Pandit.

  So there he stood, phalanxed by a group of philistines that included Kuli’s father. He narrowed his eyes to a pair of slits and hissed out words in high Bengali—a communicational compromise—that did the necessary job of hurling insults at Ramlochan, the purveyor of unspeakable crimes committed against a girl not more than ten years old.

  ‘That is ridiculous! That is so ridiculous! Has the girl said that I have fucked her?’ Ramlochan shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Jadab, you actually heard your girl tell you that I fucked her?’

  The single word had been unleashed from Ramlochan’s quivering lips and there was nothing anyone, not even Chandi Pandit, could do about it except wince and mutter the Lord’s name as an insulating device.

  ‘You sick man! You think I’ll make up stories about my own daughter?’