“How could you be so loyal to rulers who called you Kafirs?” asked Cyril Ashley.
“How are people like the Raja Saheb here so faithful to you, Sir, who call us heathens and treat us as inferior human beings? They didn’t. We were their equals, they shared our culture. Aliwardy Khan and his court officially played Holi for seven days running. Two hundred tanks in Murshidabad were filled with coloured water. They didn’t send the country’s wealth out to some foreign land. We ran their administration and held the highest ranks.”
“How could you remain subservient to the Mussalman for seven hundred years? The only explanation is that Indians kowtow to authority, to the powers that be.”
“Aali Jah Aliwardy Khan’s government consisted of a large number of Hindu ministers and generals,” Radhey Charan responded.
“Yes, but then why did so many Hindu zamindars turn against him and become our allies?” asked Peter Jackson.
“Every phase of passing time has its own logic, compulsions and expediencies.” The old man spoke like a sage and to nobody in particular.
Now it seemed to be a debate going on in a Fleet Street coffee house. Cyril began to enjoy it, for he and Peter were the winners and had the final word.
“The Hindu zamindars conspired against Aliwardy because of the Nawab’s high taxes, didn’t they?” Peter continued.
“You have made us tax-free,” Radhey Charan countered sweetly. “Aliwardy Khan had to levy high taxes in order to strengthen his army and fight back the invading Marathas. You are taxing even our marriages.”
“The Marathas didn’t ravage your beloved Bengal in raid after raid, they didn’t levy their dreaded chauth on you . . .” Peter shot back. “The mahajans and jagat seths transferred their capital across the river for fear of Maratha incursions. Large populations migrated to east and north Bengal or to Calcutta to escape their raids. That was one of the reasons that the people of Bengal turned to us for protection.”
“Young Siraj exempted you from paying custom duties. You returned his kindness by heavily taxing the goods that went out of his own dominions,” Radhey Charan argued. “When you began the sack of Hooghly, Siraj wrote, ‘You have plundered my people . . . you who call yourselves Christian, if you remain content to reside here only as traders, I’ll return to you all your concessions. Because war is disastrous. You sign peace treaties with us and break them, and you swear by the Bible. The Marathas do not have a Bible but they keep their pledges.’”
“Well, all that was settled finally in 1757. It was a famous victory,” Peter said, smiling and lighted his cheroot. “We have liberated you from the Blackamoors’ yoke. You are an ungrateful lot.”
“Plassey was a mango orchard and the trees were in flower, at the time. Nature remains indifferent,” Radhey Charan said ruefully, after a pause. “Bengal is a wilderness today. It was once the richest province of Hindustan. You have a monopoly on trade. You are taxing salt and oil and all edibles. Your cargo boats are laden with foodstuff which has disappeared from the bazaars. Famine stalks the land, prices have soared. We have nothing to eat. Why did I become so inhuman as to marry my young daughter to a man older than me? It only meant one mouth less to feed. Being Siraj-ud-Daulah’s man, my lands were confiscated after Plassey. I have a little plot left to sustain us. After the closure of our textile factories, jobless artisans and weavers are flocking to the villages to work as peasant labour.” The old man wiped his tears and fell silent.
The Raja turned towards Cyril and whispered, “I apologise, Sir, that you have had to hear such a rude speech from my guru. Please help his son get a job in Calcutta, it will bring him some peace of mind.”
In the evening Cyril interviewed Prafulla Kumar and learned that he had been educated at the village pathshala and madrasa and knew some Sanskrit, Persian and arithmetic. Cyril asked him to come to Calcutta along with his parents and sisters, and work as a supervisor in his godown. He asked Peter Jackson to give Prafulla enough money for the family’s voyage to Calcutta and settle them in the godown’s outhouses.
After which Cyril Ashley devoted himself to the revelries—a session of nautch and fireworks—at the residence of Girish Chandra Roy. The Raja knew that the young bachelor was fond of native dancing girls and had invited the best from Dacca.
To
The Editor
The Calcutta Gazette
Sir,
I read Classics at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. Out here during the last ten years I have learnt Sanskrit and Persian. I was recently presented with a 17th Century manuscript of the unfortunate Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh’s Persian translation of the Upanishads. I intend rendering it into English.
So far so good. However, what this benighted country needs urgently is English education. I do not know when the Home Government and the Directors of the Hon’ble East India Company will decide to abolish Persian, and introduce English as the official language of the regions of India now occupied and governed by us. I do believe that the superiority of Europe over the Asiatics was decided for all time to come when Persia was defeated finally in her long drawn-out war against the Greeks in 470 B.C. at Salamis. The Victory of Plassey in 1757 is only a recent example. Very soon we may hear of the end of our last arch enemy . . . Tippoo Sultan of Mysore, and then all of India will be ours.
I digress. The other day, while travelling in the Mofussil I did personally come across the ghastly scene of a young widow being forcibly sent to her death by her in-laws. Luckily, I managed to intervene. There must be immediate legislation banning this abominable custom of Suttee . . . What India also needs is a Reformation of the kind we had in Europe in the 16th century. But given the complexities and very ancient roots of their superstitions, one cannot visualise it happening here. All of the Roman Empire became Christian. All over Europe Roman temples were pulled down and cathedrals built over their ruins. I do not foresee the natives giving up their religions en masse, but they should at least be given some notion of Christian ethics . . .
— A Conscientious Englishman
21. Nabob Cyril Ashley and His Bibi
The Governor-General, Lord Cornwallis, had come back to India. There was a rumour that Cyril Ashley might be sent to the Residency at Lucknow, but he was still a bachelor.
After Plassey, the goddess Lakshmi had forsaken her own people and entered the homes of the firangis. During their stay in the Residencies of Murshidabad, Fyzabad and, more recently, Lucknow, English diplomats and traders had amassed great fortunes. In England they were being called ‘Nabobs’. They smoked the hookah and watched the Indian nautch, attended cockfights, and maintained harems.
Cyril Ashley had saved Bakshi Radhey Charan Mazumdar’s daughter from being burnt alive. She had tried to run away but her in-laws brought her back, shaved her head, gave her two white borderless saris of coarse cotton and no money, and packed her off with a group of other hapless widows to faraway Banaras. There, where these women would spend the rest of their lives telling their beads, Radhey Charan’s eldest daughter was swept away by a flood. His youngest and the prettiest, Sujata, accompanied her mother and brother Prafulla Kumar to Calcutta to live in Messrs Jackson & Ashley’s compound. Old Radhey Charan indignantly refused to come and stayed back in the village. One day, when Cyril Saheb came to his godown for inspection, he happened to see Sujata Debi. She had come to the office with her brother’s tiffin box. Once more his romantic nature took over and he fell headlong in love with her. The following day he sent for Prafulla Kumar.
In accordance with the social norms of the time you could take a native woman as a concubine or common law wife. She was given the respectable Indian title of bibi, lady. Therefore, Cyril approached his young employee with, “I say, would your sister like to reside in my bungalow as my bibi?”
Prafulla Kumar was much too obliged to Cyril Saheb to decline the offer. He also knew that the Saheb was a gentleman and was not taking advantage of his position. He did seem to genuinely care for the Bakshi family. Sujata was starry-eyed
and her mother couldn’t believe her good fortune. How those Muslim fakir’s predictions had come true! Sujata had found a rich and distinguished man!
The rear portion of Cyril’s large bungalow was converted into a zenana. Sujata arrived in a carriage with her modest luggage to live in luxury as Cyril’s common-law wife. She acquired some English, wore gowns and high-heeled shoes, and lived in semi-purdah. It was all right to have native bibis, but they were not accepted in white high society. Only pure Caucasian wives were “burra bibis”, great ladies.
Cyril was a bit of a philanderer, and Sujata turned out to be a possessive mistress. There were fights. She secretly employed a tantric to ward off her rivals but black magic didn’t seem to work. Cyril continued to have his flings, he even enjoyed the company of nautch girls and courtesans. Like any purdah-observing Indian wife, Sujata could do nothing about it.
Cyril knew well the kind of life the future held for Sujata’s children, if she had any. What would she do for their whittles? The Cornish folk song still haunted him. He hadn’t entirely forgotten Maria Teresa of Madras, and was fully aware of the fact that the offspring of such alliances were often sent to the orphanage after their white fathers died. Boys became drummers, girls obtained jobs as nannies or even turned into trollops. So would his swarthy daughter work as a nurse in an upperclass English home and sing “Baby bunting”, and “Husha-bye” lullabies?
Betty is a lady and wears a ring.
Johnny is a drummer and drums for the King.
Ye gods. Don’t we have an abominable caste system, too? So, should he marry the Honourable Eleanore Hogg-Brentwood who had arrived from England last month, hoping to find a husband here? How could these pale and insipid females be compared to the gorgeous women of this exotic land?
Sujata was so beautiful that Cyril intended commissioning some important English artist to paint her the way Thomas Hicky had painted William Hicky’s bibi. There were many fashionable artists working in India at the time. Zoffany became famous for his portrait of General Claude Martin’s Gorio Bibi. James Wales, Charles Smith and Franceseco Renaldi had immortalised the exquisite bibis of prominent Europeans of Fyzabad, Lucknow and Calcutta. Some day posterity might admiringly view Sujata’s portrait with the caption, “The Bibi of Nabob Cyril Ashley—1797.”
His life was busy and hectic. Balls at Belvedere, the Governor-General’s public breakfasts, concerts at Hasting Street, feasts in the villas of Garden Reach. Performances of Otway and Sheridan at the Playhouse, evenings at the Harmonica in Lai Bazaar. Adventurous journeys into the moffusil—the riverways of Bengal were open to him. Sometimes he felt as though he were in a Russian court and the hundreds of indigo culivators were his serfs. Huge sampans carried his cargo along the Dhaleshwari, the Karnaphully and the Madhumati. The great fleet of river vessels at Dacca that once belonged to the Moghuls and the Nawab-Nazims now flew the flag of the Hon’ble East India Company’s government.
Twenty-five years went by; Cyril had still not found the right Miss White. He was balding, had acquired a pot-belly and nobody to inherit his pots of gold. Even if Sujata had not remained barren, her offspring could not succeed to the Ashley millions. She had lost her looks and deteriorated into a nagging housewife. Being an honourable man he could not discard poor old Sujata, nor could he live with her. So whenever he went to Lucknow on official business he spent an evening or two in the stimulating company of Champa Jan, the celebrated demi-mondaine of that colourful city. She was witty and intelligent and sang his favourite Persian and Urdu ghazals. She made him forget his worries—at least for the time being.
He was to go to Oudh again in the summer of 1823, but peasant trouble was brewing in Nadia district and he could not leave Bengal. On a fine spring morning he reached his office feeling more depressed than ever. He had to summon an urgent meeting of his subordinate officials to discuss the holy war the Mohammedan fanatics were waging against the English. ‘My cup of sorrow brimmeth over,’ he said to himself, wallowing in self-pity. Then he rang the bell for he needed the latest intelligence report pertaining to the activities of the Faraidi Maulvis. His orderly appeared like a djinn. “Head Baboo,” he said briefly. Another djinn stood in the doorway.
“May I come in, sir, good morning, sir.”
Cyril looked up, surprised. It was a new face. “Ah. Are you the lad Mr. Alcott has sent me?”
“Yes, sir. My name is G.N. Dutt, Sir. I joined duty in the forenoon, yesterday.”
Smart chap. “You know your rules and regulations well! How long have you been in government service?”
“Three years, sir. I joined immediately after passing my F.A.”
“Why didn’t you do your B.A. first?”
“Sir, my financial circumstances were not conducive to my pursuing further studies. I support my indigent parents who live in Mymensingh.”
Cyril smiled. Like all good baboos this one was also fond of speaking pompously correct English. He would go far. “Well, Dutt, you should join evening classes for your B.A. I’ll speak to the Principal of Hindu College.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man exclaimed happily, “most kind of you, sir, thank you.”
Cyril was a good judge of men. He had dealt with all manner of Indians during the thirty-six years he had spent in this country. He came to like and trust the boy, Dutt. A trunkful of documents had to be sent to the Resident at Lucknow. It could not go by ordinary dak and needed a special courier. After a few days he called the new clerk to his room and told him to book a cabin on board an Allahabad-bound ship, take the peon Ghulam Ali with him, and leave for Oudh at the earliest.
“Yes, sir, very good, sir.” The young man could not believe his good fortune.
“From Allahabad’s Beni Ghat you will take a stage coach to Lucknow.”
“Very good, sir.” He turned to leave.
“Wait. I have brought the big Johnson for you, to improve your English. You can read it during your voyage.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” The boy picked up the tome from the mantelpiece and left. Two subordinate Englishmen present in the room exchanged glances. The whimsical old Ashley had started patronising the baboo. The lad would go places. His former godown superviser, Prafulla Kumar, had superseded the Armenian manager of Messrs Jackson & Ashley.
Cyril lighted his cheroot and noted his junior colleagues’ reaction. He remembered Cornwallis who was often irritated by his erratic tendency to fraternise with the locals. The Company had now acquired political authority, old policies had changed. Nevertheless, Cyril was a “nabob” of the old school and remembered that Indians were a subject race.
The thought of death frightened Cyril Ashley. His physician had told him to watch out, cut down on his alcohol, and worry less. So, was he going to die like General Claude Martin of Lucknow who had departed this world in 1800, leaving his considerable wealth for the education of European children? That celebrated Frenchman also had a native Muslim bibi and an adopted Muslim son (probably his own), Zulficar Martin. They were not his successors.
He closed his eyes, tiredly. Well, first things first. He must rush to Nadia to quell the Muslim peasant rebellion. Next, drown his sorrows in the French wine offered by Champa Jan in Lucknow. Then to England, to bring back a propah English bride. And what shall he do with poor Sujata Debi?
Gautam Nilambar Dutt returned to his rooms in Manektala and began packing excitedly. It was quite late in the evening when he heard a footfall and came out into the lane. A sad-faced middle-aged woman was standing before him.
“You Nilambar baboo?” she asked in broken English. She was dressed in a faded English gown and wore high-heels.
“Yes, madam,” he answered politely.
“I Sujata Debi, Ashley Saheb ka Bibi.”
Gautam was taken aback. He also felt a little embarrassed. He had heard that the Saheb had a very devoted bibi, who had also been exceptionally beautiful, in his zenana. Suddenly, the woman began speaking rapidly in Bengali. “I am told that Saheb has become ver
y fond of you. Sending you to Lucknow.”
He nodded, still mystified.
“Have you heard of Champa Bai?”
“Champa Bai? No. Who is she?”
“Famous vaishya of Lucknow. Saheb has been smitten by her. Spends lavishly on her when he goes there. He has become indifferent to me. I am all alone in the world. My father had a lot of personal pride. He died of shock when he heard that I was living with Cyril Saheb. My mother has died recently. My sister-in-law doesn’t welcome me in her house. Where shall I go?”
She began to cry. Nilambar was unnerved. She wiped her tears and spoke again. “Tell Champa Bai: You have hundreds of admirers. Saheb could mean nothing to you but a wealthy old fool. I have nobody else in the whole world. I have served him hand and foot for twenty-five years. He knows it. The fancy Miss Sahebs he dances with in the balls—if he had married one of them she wouldn’t have put up with his temper and his eccentricities for a day. I did. Now he casts me off like an old shoe. I live in his bungalow merely as a housekeeper. Champa has bewitched him. She has got black magic done against me.”
“Champa . . . whoever she is . . . is not here, madam, she is far, far away in Lucknow. You need not worry,” Gautam answered reasonably.
“Don’t you know? Saheb is about to leave for Lucknow—on a very big post. He has told me to go back to my brother, says he has put a lot of money in the bank for my old age. I ask you, son, is money everything? And he is going to take up with Champa Bai again, even on a semi-permanent basis, when he gets there . . . Will you please tell me what you said to that harlot when you come back from Oudh? Then perhaps Saheb will still take me with him to Lucknow. I’ll look after him to my dying day.”
River of Fire Page 14