by Amitav Ghosh
I am getting ahead of myself: I have yet to bring you to Fanqui-town’s landing ghat, which is called – and this is true I swear – ‘Jackass Point’ (the fabled Man-Town must, in other words, be entered through the Point of Jack’s Unspeakable). Yet this suppository is no different from our Calcutta landing-ghats: there is no jetty – instead there are steps, sticky with mud from the last high tide (yes, my darling Puggleshwaree, the Pearl, like our beloved Hooghly, rises and falls twice a day!). But even in Calcutta I have never witnessed such a goll-maul as there is at Jackass Point: so many people, so much bobbery, so much hulla-gulla, so many coolies, making such a tamasha of fighting over your bags and bowlas! I counted myself fortunate in being able to steer mine towards a lad with a winning smile, one Ah Lei (why so many Ahs, you might ask, and never any Oohs? On the streets of Macau too you will come across innumerable young men who will pass themselves off as ‘Ah Man’, ‘Ah Gan’ and the like, and if ever you should ask what the ‘Ah!’ signifies you will learn that in Cantonese, as in English, this vocable serves no function other than that of clearing the throat. But just because the bearers of the ‘Ah’ are usually young, or poor, you must not imagine that they possess no other name. In their other incarnations they may well be known as ‘Fire Breathing Dragon’ or ‘Tireless Steed’ – whether accurately or not only their Wives and Friends will know).
Ah Lei was neither dragon nor steed; he was less than half my size. I thought he would be crushed by my luggage but he hoisted it all on his back with a couple of flicks of his wrist. ‘What-place wanchi?’ says he to me, and I tell him: ‘Markwick’s Hotel’. And so, following my young Atlas, I stepped upon the stretch of shore that forms the heart and hearth of Fanqui-town. This is an open space between the factories and the river-bank: the English speak of it as ‘The Square’, but Hindusthanis have a better name for it. They call it the ‘Maidan’ which is exactly what it is, a crossroads, a meeting-place, a piazza, a promenade, a stage for a tamasha that never ends: it is a scene of such activity, such animation, that I despair of being able to capture it on canvas. Everywhere you look there is something utterly strange and ever so singular: a storm of chirruping approaches you, and at its centre is a man with thousands of walnut-shells hanging from shoulder-poles; on closer inspection you discover that each walnut has been carved into an exquisite cage – for a cricket! The man is carrying thousands of these insects and they are all in full song. You have not taken more than a step or two before another tempest of noise approaches you, at a trot; at the centre of it is a grand personage, perhaps a Mandarin or a merchant of the Co-Hong guild; he is seated in a kind of palki, except that it is actually a curtained sedan chair, suspended from shoulder-poles; the men who carry the chair are called ‘horses without tails’ and they have attendants running alongside, beating drums and clappers to clear the way. It is all so new that you stare too long and are almost trampled underfoot by the tail-less stallions…
And yet it is a tiny place! All of Fanqui-town – the Maidan, the streets and all thirteen factories – would fit into a small corner of the Maidan in Calcutta. From end to end the enclave is only about a thousand feet in length, less than a quarter of a mile, and in width it is about half that. In a way Fanqui-town is like a ship at sea, with hundreds – no, thousands – of men living crammed together in a little sliver of a space. I do believe there is no place like it on earth, so small and yet so varied, where people from the far corners of the earth must live, elbow to elbow, for six months of the year. I tell you, Pugglissima mia, were you to stand in the Maidan and look at the flags of the factories, fluttering against the grey walls of Canton’s citadel, I am certain you too would be overcome: it is as if you had arrived at the threshold of the last and greatest of all the world’s caravanserais.
And yet, in a way, it is also so familiar: Everywhere you look there are khidmatgars, daftardars, khansamas, chuprassies, peons, durwans, khazanadars, khalasis and lascars. And this, my dear Puggly, is one of the greatest of the many surprises of Fanqui-town – a great number of its denizens are from India! They come from Sindh and Goa, Bombay and Malabar, Madras and the Coringa hills, Calcutta and Sylhet – but these differences mean nothing to the gamins who swarm around the Maidan. They have their own names for every variety of foreign devil: the British are ‘I-says’ and the French are ‘Merdes’. The Hindusthanis are by the same token, ‘Achhas’: no matter whether a man is from Karachi or Chittagong, the lads will swarm after him, with their hands outstretched, shouting: ‘Achha! Achha! Gimme cumshaw!’
They seem to be persuaded that the Achhas are all from one country – is it not the most diverting notion? There is even a factory that is spoken of as the ‘Achha Hong’ – of course it has no flag of its own.
*
Neel’s days began early in the Achha Hong. Bahram was a man of settled habits, and his retainers and employees had to arrange their time to suit his will and convenience. For Neel this meant that he had to rise while it was still dark, for it was he who bore the responsibility of making sure that Bahram’s daftar was cleaned and made ready in exact accordance with his wishes. The Seth would not tolerate any imprecision in this matter: the room had to be swept at least half an hour before he made his entry, so as to give the dust time to settle; Neel’s desk and chair had to be placed exactly so, pushed against that corner of the far wall and nowhere else. Making sure of all this was no mean feat, for it involved waking and chivvying many others, some of whom were not at all inclined to take orders from a munshi as young and inexperienced as Neel.
The daftar was as strange a room as any Neel had ever seen: it looked as though it had been transported to China from some chilly part of northern Europe – its ceiling was high and raftered, like that of a chapel, and it even had a fireplace and mantel.
It was Vico who told Neel how the Seth had come into the occupancy of his daftar. In his early days in Canton, Bahram, like most other Parsi merchants, had resided in the Dutch factory: the story went that in the distant past in Gujarat, the Parsis had been of great help to merchants from the Netherlands – later they, in turn, had offered the Parsis shelter when they began to trade with China. Back in Surat, Bahram’s grandfather too had once had a trading partner from Amsterdam, and it was this connection that had first brought Bahram to the Dutch Factory. But Bahram had never much cared for that hong; it was a dull, solemn kind of place where a loud laugh or raised voice could fetch disapproving glares and even dumbcowings. Besides, as one of the youngest members of the Bombay contingent, Bahram had almost always been assigned the dampest and darkest rooms in the complex. Nor did it add to his comfort that so many other Parsis were living in that hong – including many elders who believed it to be their duty to keep an eye on him – so when he learnt that a fine apartment had become available in another building, he had wasted no time in going to take a look.
It turned out that the establishment in question was the Fungtai Hong, which was a ‘chow-chow’ or miscellaneous factory. The Fungtai’s frontage was modest by comparison with some of its neighbours. Like all the factories it was not really a single edifice, but rather a row of houses, connected by arched gateways and covered corridors, each building being separated from the others by a courtyard. The houses were not all of the same size: some were small, while others were large enough to be divided into several apartments, each with its own kitchen, godown, daftar, khazana and living quarters. The houses at the rear were generally the least desirable: being separated from the Maidan by numerous corridors and courtyards they were darker and dingier than those in front; some were like tenements and their cell-like rooms were occupied by the poorest of Fanqui-town’s foreign sojourners – small-time traders and money-jobbers, servants and minor daftardars.
The most desirable lodgings in Fanqui-town were those that looked out on the Maidan, but these were few in number since the buildings were so narrow-fronted. They were considered a great luxury and were priced accordingly but even then it was very rare for an apartmen
t with a view to become available. So when Bahram saw that he was being offered a suite that looked out on the Maidan he was quick to put down an advance. Since then, he had rented the same suite on every subsequent visit, adding a few more rooms each time, to accommodate his growing entourage of shroffs, khidmatgars, daftardars and kitchen staff.
Later, following Bahram’s example, many other Bombay merchants had started to gravitate towards the Fungtai, which was how the factory came to be known as the ‘Achha Hong’. But the distinction of being the first Parsi to move there belonged to Bahram, and now, having sojourned there for more than two decades, he occupied the best rooms in the building as if by right: his establishment included a godown, a kitchen, a khazana, and several small cubicles and dormitories to accommodate his entourage of fifteen employees. His own apartment was on the top floor, and it consisted of a spacious but gloomy bedroom, a frigid bathroom and a dining room that was only used on special occasions. And then, of course, there was the daftar, with its fine view of the Maidan and the river – over the years, its mullioned window had become one of the minor landmarks of the foreign enclave and many an old resident had been known to point it out to newcomers: ‘Take a dekko up there; that’s where Barry Moddie has his daftar.’
But Bahram was not, of course, the only merchant ever to use that room: in years when he chose to remain in Bombay over the trading season, it was rented out to others. Several of the apartment’s former occupants had left behind traces of their tenancy, for it often happened, at the end of a season, that a merchant would find himself burdened with more possessions than he could conveniently carry home: in those circumstances, the easiest thing to do was to leave them behind. In this fashion a large collection of miscellaneous objects had accumulated in the daftar: waist-high figurines with nodding heads, pagodas carved out of wood, lacquered mirrors, a silver urn that was actually a nutmeg grater, and a glass bowl with a perpetually circling, goggle-eyed goldfish. Many of these things belonged to Bahram, including an enigmatic boulder that sat in one of the room’s darker corners, blanketed in dust: it was large, grey and so pock-marked with holes that it looked as if it had been eaten from within by maggots.
‘You know who gave that thing?’ said Bahram to Neel one morning, pointing to the boulder. ‘It was Chunqua, my old comprador. One fine day he comes here and says he has brought a present to do chin-chin. So I said, all right, why not? So then six fellows come up carrying this rock. Must be some joke, I thought: the fellow has hidden some jewel or something inside – now suddenly he will pull it out and make a big surprise. But no! He tells me his great-great-grandfather has brought it from Lake Tai, which is famous for stones – (just imagine, hah? for rocks also these Chinese fellows have ‘famous places’ – like laddoos and mithais for us). But after the rock was brought back to his house, his forefather decided the damn thing wasn’t ready yet. See, no, how these fellows think? God had made this rock long ago, but that is not enough. So what they did, you know? They placed it under their house roof, so water could fall on it and make patterns. So much time these fellows have, hah? Not like you and me: no one is doing jaldi-jaldi and chull-chull. Ninety years the bloody rock sits under the roof, and then Chunqua decides it is ready at last and he brings to me as a chin-chin gift. Arre-baba, I thought to myself, what I will do with this damn-big rock? But can’t refuse also or his feelings may be hurt. And can’t take home either, or Beebeejee will dumbcow. “What?” she will say: “nothing else you can find in China, you are bringing me sticks and stones? What sort of budmashee you are learning there?” So what to do? I had to leave here.’
The rock was not the only object in the room to be imbued with a private significance for the Seth: his desk was another. This was, without a doubt, a beautifully made piece of furniture, a polished assemblage of red-tinted padauk wood and gleaming Paktong hardware. The front opened out to reveal a double row of arched pigeonholes, separated by columns that were carved to look like gilded book-spines. Below the writing surface lay nine solid drawers, each fitted with a brass handle and keyhole.
The desk’s keys were all in Bahram’s safe keeping, except for the largest which opened the front – Neel too was entrusted with a copy of this one, for it was his job to unlock the desk in the morning and to make sure that it was stocked with Bahram’s chosen writing materials. The goose quills that the Seth professed to like were not hard to supply – but ink was a different matter, for Bahram would not put up with anything ordinary. While in Canton, he insisted on having at his disposal a finely carved inkstone, a couple of high-quality inksticks, and a little pot of special ‘spring’ water – all this so that he might, if the need arose, grind his own ink, in the patient, meditative fashion of a Chinese scholar. Given the fidgetiness of Bahram’s disposition, this was the unlikeliest of conceits, but no matter – the ink-making materials, like the quills, had to be placed in exactly the same spot every day, near the top, left-hand corner of the desk. The irony was that neither the desk nor the ink-making materials ever saw much use since Bahram rarely sat down while he was in the daftar; his time there was spent mainly in pacing the floor, with his hands clasped behind his back; even when he had to sign a document, he usually did it standing by the window, with one of Neel’s well-worn quills.
Only when he was eating his breakfast did Bahram make extended use of a chair. This meal was an elaborate affair, a ceremony that had evolved over many years: it was presided over by Mesto the cook, and it was served not in Bahram’s private dining room, but on a marble-topped table in a corner of the daftar. Shortly before the Seth entered the daftar, Mesto would cover the table with a silk cloth; then, once Bahram was seated, he would lay before him an array of little plates and bowls, containing perhaps some akoori – eggs, scrambled with coriander leaves, green chillies and spring onions; some shu-mai dumplings, stuffed with minced chicken and mushrooms; maybe a couple of slices of toast and some skewers of satay as well, and possibly a small helping of Madras-style congee, flavoured with ghee, and a small dish of kheemo kaleji – mutton minced with liver. And so on.
Bahram’s breakfast always ended with a beverage that Mesto claimed to have invented himself: the drink was made with tea leaves but it bore no resemblance to the chah that was commonly served in Canton – indeed it was considered so revolting by the Achha Hong’s Chinese visitors that the very smell of it had made a couple of them vomit (‘Just look,’ said Vico, disparagingly, ‘these fellows are happy to eat snakes and scorpions but milk they cannot take!’).
Although it was Mesto who prepared the beverage, the responsibility for procuring the ingredients fell to Vico – and this was no small matter, since one of the drink’s most important requirements was milk, a commodity that was harder to obtain, in Canton, than myrrh or myrobalans. The foreign enclave’s main source consisted of a few cows that belonged to the Danish Hong; since many of the European merchants could not do without cream, butter and cheese, the Danes’ entire supply was spoken for as soon as it had squirted into the pail. But the tireless Vico had discovered another provider: directly across the river from the foreign enclave, on Honam Island, lay an immense Buddhist monastery which housed a sizeable contingent of Tibetan monks. Being accustomed to buttered tea and other comestibles that required milk, the Tibetans kept, as a substitute for yaks, a small herd of buffaloes: these were the animals that provided the milk for Mesto’s beverage. He boiled it with a measure of dark Bohea leaves and a sprinkling of cloves, cinnamon and star anise – all this was rounded off with a few handfuls of cheeni, the refined Chinese sugar that had recently become popular in Bombay. The resulting confection was called ‘chai’, or ‘chai-garam’ (the latter being a reference to the garam-masala that went into it): Bahram could not do without it, and tumblers were brought to him at regular intervals, providing the punctuation for the passage of his day.
Chai was the beverage of choice not just for Bahram but for the whole of the Achha Hong, and everyone in Bahram’s entourage listened keenly for the vo
ices of the peons who came through periodically, chanting: Chai garam, chai garam! Particularly eagerly awaited was the mid-morning tumbler of chai, which was usually served with a snack. Of these the one that was most commonly provided was a Uighur speciality called a samsa – these were small triangles of pastry, stuffed usually with minced meat: baked in portable tandoors they were sold hot in the Maidan and were easy to procure. Being the ancestor of a popular Indian snack, they were consumed with much relish in the Accha Hong and were spoken of familiarly by their Hindusthani name – samosa.
Like everyone else in the Achha Hong, Neel too was soon looking forward eagerly to his mid-morning samosa and chai-garam. But to him the sound of these unfamiliar words was just as savoury as the items that bore their names. He found that he was constantly learning new words from the others in Bahram’s entourage: some, like ‘chai’, came from Cantonese, while others were brought in from the Portuguese by Vico – like ‘falto’ for example, meaning fraudulent or false, which became phaltu on Achha tongues.
Even as he was settling in, it became clear to Neel that No. 1 Fungtai Hong was a world in itself, with its own foods and words, rituals and routines: it was as if the inmates were the first inhabitants of a new country, a yet unmade Achha-sthan. What was more, all its residents, from the lowliest of broom-wielding kussabs to the most fastidious of coin-sifting shroffs, took a certain pride in their house, not unlike that of a family. This surprised Neel at first, for on the face of it, the idea that the Achhas might form a family of some kind was not just improbable but absurd: they were a motley gathering of men from distant parts of the Indian subcontinent and they spoke between them more than a dozen different languages; some were from areas under British or Portuguese rule, and others hailed from states governed by Nawabs or Nizams, Rajas or Rawals; amongst them there were Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Parsis and also a few who, back at home, would have been excluded by all. Had they not left the subcontinent their paths would never have crossed and few of them would ever have met or spoken with each other, far less thought of eating a meal together. At home, it would not have occurred to them to imagine that they might have much in common – but here, whether they liked it or not there was no escaping those commonalities; they were thrust upon them every time they stepped out of doors, by the cries that greeted them in the Maidan: ‘Achha! Aa-chaa?’