Tragic Magic

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Every evening all the cooks in the compound would set off to walk a mile and more over a rough road to the station. There they would board a train and duly arrive at Howrah station in Calcutta. A bus took them to the New Market in the centre of Calcutta. Where and how they spent their nights I have never discovered but suspect that like many of their brethren they would sleep curled up in some corner near the market. Early in the morning, their shopping completed, they would embark on the return journey.

They never carried their baskets from the station to the mill but engaged coolies to do so. My task was to examine the food laid out on the table of the bottle khana and later mark down in a bazaar book the prices dictated by the cook. It was always a source of amazement to me as to how he was able to account for every anna and bring back the correct change. He just stood there beside me, rattling off all the items with never any bits of paper to jolt his memory. There was no hesitation - no mistakes. Of course, he had to have his perks. Who could blame him as long as he didn't overdo it? I argued at times over his prices and the quality of the fish he called bhekti. It is a name that was familiar to every memsahib up and down the river. The flesh of this popular fish was something between cod and halibut. There were three qualities of the same fish. The one caught in the sea was the best, the second came from the river and the last from some of the local tanks, which had a nasty taste of stagnant water. It was difficult to argue over the quality of meat, mutton or chicken. They were all poor and the chickens, especially, stringy.

The reason for the cook having to bring the food daily was that there was no refrigerator until some two years after my arrival. Everyone had ice-boxes. Ice was delivered to us daily from Ludlow jute mills down the river where it was manufactured. It would have been comparatively simple for the launch to pick up the ice after a short journey of barely a mile, but the launch was not allowed to be used for that purpose. Instead two or three coolies set off every day on a dinghy to collect the ice, at times rowing laboriously against the tide. The dinghy loaded with ice had even a harder journey back to Lawrence where the ice was divided according to the various positions held by the sahibs. The largest portions were given to the burra sahib and the salesman, less for the kerani and still less further down the line. By night the ice melted away. At times, sitting at peace, suddenly we would hear a loud crash wonder what had happened only to discover it was the ice melting and breaking inside the ice-box.

I still remember the great joy of seeing my first fridge. I kept patting the smooth surface and could have kissed it. It made such a difference to our lives.

Because we lived not far from the sea the water was hard and slightly salty. It was used only for baths and domestic chores and came from the tube wells in the compound. This water was also supplied to all the workers' quar ters. The water for drinking and cooking was brought daily from the Budge-Budge depot on the other side of the river where there was a tank supplied with water from Calcutta.

Every day the coolies from the mill would set off in a dinghy and return with containers, resembling milk churns, filled with Calcutta water. The containers were distributed to all cookhouses. The drinking water was boiled, put through a filter in each house, then poured into empty whisky bottles and kept in the ice-box and, later, in the fridge.

As it was impossible to wash one's hair in the bath water, something that I discovered to my cost, all married quarters were supplied with condensate from the boiler house in the mill. A bucket or two was brought and emptied into a container in the bathroom. This water, as soft as silk, was used for washing our hair and articles of clothing which otherwise would have been ruined by the hard The dhobi (laundry man) had no option but to use the available water. In those days there were no soapless detergents with the result that gradually all our towels took on a dull grey tinge.

In spite of many problems the way of life in the com pound, with the help of many hands, ran like clockwork. In our house it was the sweeper who brought each day the condensate from the mill and who polished the tiled floors daily, cleaned the bathroom, the bottle khana and emptied the refuse bucket.

As the bungalow for many years had been occupied only by bachelors I took it into my head, one day, that many unseen corners may have been neglected and suggested to Sofi Khan that he should extend his dusting to the top of the wardrobe in addition to the dressing table. This simple request was met with horrified amazement. He left the room and returned with the sweeper carrying a step-ladder. There standing on the top step, surrounded by a cloud of dust, the sweeper with great energy attacked the layers of grime accumulated on top of the wardrobe throughout the years. I realized then that such an undig nified assignment was never meant for Sofi but only for the sweeper for whom no task was ever too lowly, too dirty or too unpleasant. He was the untouchable, a member of a class of people whose presence and even shadows are offensive to the higher castes.

I am reminded of an incident that took place years later which had aroused my indignation. I was very friendly with a charming Indian lady, who was gentle, kind and very likeable. She was also well educated, spoke perfect English and enjoyed reading all the English classics. One day as she was setting off in her car, the sweeper, anxious to please, was polishing the door handle. She stopped and, glancing coldly in his direction, remarked, 'How can I possibly touch that handle after your hands have been in contact with it?'

The untouchables have been untouchable for genera tions and remain so at present. At times I ask myself why is it in this great land of India, where there can be found so many enlightened and educated men, that this obscenity, degrading the human spirit to the lowest possible level, should have been allowed to continue for centuries and will, short of a miracle, persist in the future?

We Europeans were inclined to accept the status quo; we had no choice. After all, were we not simply birds of passage?

In late September, when I arrived, the rainy season was drawing to a close. With the humidity so high, it is a sticky unpleasant time. From the rain-drenched earth, now drying out, steam rises, the air is heavy. All creatures that creep, crawl, sting and bite appear from nowhere. There is also the ever-present menace of mosquitoes.

I had been bitten before in the Arctic regions of Russia, where I was brought up, and likewise attacked by clouds of midges in the Highlands of Scotland, but never had I known such ferocity with which I was devoured by the mosquitoes of Bengal. You'll be all right in time, the ladies tried to console me. 'It happened to us all when we came out at first. The mosquitoes love new blood.' They certainly relished mine!

Worst of all was when one of these winged maraud ers succeeded in getting inside the mosquito netting. I remember how on one such occasion I had tried in vain to catch it. How I had crawled, clapped my hands and leapt from one side of the bed to the other until a plaintive voice reminded me, 'Don't you know I have to work tomorrow?' There was no option but to fall back on my pillow and eventually drop off to sleep to the torturous buzzing of that pest hovering above me. But in the morning there it was, clinging to the netting, satiated, blown up, unable to escape. How sweet was my revenge when at last I caught this odious tormentor and squeezed it hard against the net. Everything passes. In time I did acquire some immunity but not before every bit of my exposed skin on legs and arms was completely covered by bleeding sores and scratches.

There were compensations such as the day when Ron and I set off together on a shopping spree. We crossed the river, hired a taxi for the day and duly arrived in Calcutta. Inside Hall & Anderson, a shop renowned throughout the East, we chose a three-piece suite in a pleasant shade of beige, an almond-green carpet and curtain material to match. We bought some other bits and pieces including

a few dekshis (cooking pots) requested by the cook. Gradually the lounge took shape. My boxes had arrived safely with nothing damaged or broken. A new attrac tive fitment, made in the mill from natural teak, now held all our books including Russian classics, treasured since my childhood. Some ornaments, an etching or two, a mirror and table lamps were arranged on walls and tables. The old shabby sofa and chairs were thrown out. Gone was the dreary bareness of the room. Instead there were now comfortable chairs, soft lamplight, col oured cushions and curtains. We had a home by the Hooghly.