Of Times Past and Present, and of Overlooked People
I chanced upon a collection of short stories by the celebrated Bengali author Saradindu Bandopadhay who is known primarily as the creator of Byomkesh Bakshi, the private investigator who would rather be known as Satyanweshi or the seeker of truth.
Extremely prolific was our Saradindu who, besides the above categories, also wrote a fair number of quite engaging historical novels and tales of the supernatural.
Such has been the afterlife of the Byomkesh stories, particularly after a fresh lease of life fuelled by a few of these stories being made into films, that most people are unaware of the range of creative output of this author and also the fact that Saradindu had a long inning as a screenplay writer in Bombay, first with Bombay Talkies and then with Filmistan Studio from 1938 to 1952, at which point he decided to bid farewell to the world of cinema and the megacity to settle in the quieter environs of the then Poona. He continued to live there for almost the rest of his life.
Many of his stories are thus set in Bombay and Poona and even smaller places like Mahabaleshwar and they cover the entire range of his oeuvre- mystery, horror and social commentary. The stories belonging to the last named category are based on his observations on the people from this part of the world who had seemed different to him from the people from his familiar Bengal and Bihar where he had spent the early part of his life but among expatriate Bengali communities. Some of them he found rather exotic- like the bicycle riding, emancipated Poona girl, the odd colourful Goan Christian mechanic and the East Indian community of Bombay, Thane and Vasai.
But the point here is that he does not seem to know the last named community for what they were. But then not many do- not then and not now. One encounters them in Mumbai every day, but is blissfully unaware of their unique identity, of being the original people of these parts, comprising the fishing tribes of Koli, Bhandari and others, the first to be brought into the Catholic fold by the Portuguese as early as the Seventeenth Century and thus acquiring their Portuguese surnames. Well, part of the problem has been created by the community itself- that although from the westernmost part of the country, they chose to call themselves East Indians! This was done to give themselves a unique identity and to be recognized as different from the large number of other Catholics pouring in from Goa and Mangalore in search of livelihood in the rapidly growing opportunities for work in Bombay from the closing years of the eighteenth century onward and also to cement their ties with the Hon’ble East India Company!
Ironically, today their identity has been subsumed in that of these same groups- Goans and Mangaloreans and, to a lesser extent, Anglo Indians.
Coming back to Saradindu Bandopadhyay, there is this short story by him titled Yasmin desh-e (1940), which is a diminutive form of the derived Bengali/Sanskrit aphorism ‘Yasmin desh-e yadachar’, a rough and ready equivalent of which would be-“ When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” I had said in the beginning that I ‘chanced’ upon this story. I hadn’t been entirely honest. I had been looking for it for a while when I came upon it, by chance maybe, a half remembered story read long ago where I had found not a mention but a description of the East Indian community for the first time, but my understanding of the story was flawed, just as the writer’s understanding of his subject had been.
The story had been set in the Bombay of the late 1930s( it was published in 1940), The first person narrator, whom we can take to be Saradindu himself, takes a day off from work to visit the ‘ruins’ at a place which is almost the last stop by electric train from Bombay, a little less than two hours away. Though not named it is clear that his intended spot is the Portuguese fort at Vasai(Bassein). It appears to be an enchanting place to him and his penchant for the supernatural comes to the fore and he begins to believe in the local stories associated with the ruins and can see why they don’t venture here after dark when it was possible to hear a hundred phantom horsemen ride by and a sentry from the spirit world challenge you with a shouted “Halt! Quem vai la!”(sic).
Returning to the little town after his wanderings parched and hungry, the writer is looking for a place to eat, skeptical of the possibility of this nondescript town being able to cater to his discerning Bombay palate, when he comes upon a small eatery with a disproportionally large signboard saying ‘East Indian Hotel’ outside. Taking this as a sign from heaven he enters, happy with the thought that as he himself was from the eastern part of India, this place was meant for him. On entering he finds a small, bare room with a few metal tables and chairs. Faint murmurings in a female and a male voice can be heard coming from an inner sanctum, presumably the kitchen.
On hearing the sounds in the outer room a short, squat, dark man in his early thirties emerges from inside. Having lived in Bombay for some time now, the writer surmises that except for a Parsi or an Irani, the man could be from any part of India. He asks the writer something which the latter couldn’t understand and said in English that he wanted tea. The man explains to him in more or less correct English the intricacies of the various quantities of tea that could be ordered and retires inside after having noted the order. We are told that the man dipped his head from side to side, as is the custom in these parts. Sounds of making tea and a happy exchange in the same musical( but unintelligible to the author) language can be heard.
The steaming cup of tea arrives shortly and, but for a little too much of sugar and milk, is good and aromatic. The first sip of the steaming tea brings out the customary “Ahhh!” of bliss from the writer who then, his spirits lifted, begins to hum the opening lines of a popular Bengali song. The result is electrifying. The young man looks at him with delighted surprise and blurts out, “Apni Bangali?”-the time honoured Bengali equivalent of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” When he offers the information that he too is one, the writer has his doubts- could this man who sets up a restaurant in this remote place so far from Bengal, who spoke in this unfamiliar tongue, who shook his head from side to side in assent, be really a Bengali, even though he spoke the language? The young man assures him that he is indeed a Bengali, and delighted to have spotted a fellow Bengali so far from home and after such a long time. Having ascertained from the writer that he is from Calcutta he says he is too.
All of a sudden the man springs up in excitement and tells the writer to leave the tea alone, and that there was food, Bengali food. He sheepishly admits that he’d been missing Bengali delicacies and had taken the trouble of preparing shingara(samosa) and cham cham that very morning.
The young man Tapesh can hardly contain his excitement at being able to speak his language and soon an animated exchange is underway. But they are interrupted by the arrival of three young women at the front door. One of them wore a skirt like a ‘mem’ and the other two were dressed in sari but draped like a dhoti. In unison they called to someone inside, all the time chattering amongst themselves. Tapesh cranes his neck towards the door and says something cheerfully. A response could be heard from inside as well and a young woman, clearly the same Tapesh was having a conversation with earlier, emerges from the inner room carrying a cloth bag, talking and laughing at the same time. She throws a quick, sideways, curious glance at the writer and goes out with her friends, after some rapidly spoken words with Tapesh
I would try to give you a description of the girl in the writer’s own words-“The girl was about twenty or twenty two- firm, young body, without an excess of clothing too…..One rarely gets to see physical attributes of such perfection as in women from these parts. The sari is worn tightly wrapped around the legs like a dhoti, but it is not permitted to climb above the waist; an angarkha made from cheap calico print does duty to keep the youthful abundance of the upper body in a state of careless control. When these women move about joyfully in the streets, their meticulously tied chignon adorned with a thin string of flowers, some carrying their wares of vegetables or kindle wood on their head to sell at the marketplace, although to the newcomer their easy familiarity may seem a little too forward, they cannot but shower the connoisseur’s eyes with sweetness”.(translation mine)
But embedded in the above passage is an assumption that I have removed to deal with separately. It is here that the writer commits a monumental gaffe. He educates us that these people belonged to an upajati (tribe) called Ghati who came from the small hamlets nestling in the valleys of the Western Ghats.
Well, he errs on multiple counts. First, there is no tribe called Ghati in the Western Ghats. Second, the people he refers to here are the quintessential coastal people from around Bombay. Lastly, the term ‘Ghati’ is used mostly in a pejorative sense. Without going into the contentious details of who uses it for whom, let us say it is a term that the urban dweller of Maharashtra cities like Mumbai and Pune uses it for people who are rustic and, in his eyes, unsophisticated.
Although the writer would like to claim for himself the benefit of the doubt by saying that he was not entirely sure if this girl was Ghati or not, her physical characteristics and manner pointed in that direction! Then he tells us that “Like a black, startled gazelle she entered the room hurriedly and left with equal alacrity” (Translation mine).
One would have to think that having lived in Bombay for a couple of years by then he ought to have been able to make out that the language spoken by Tapesh and the girl and her friends was only a variation of Marathi- in that the East Indian Marathi had words borrowed from Portuguese, Konkani and other languages. Also the intonation is different. And, that disproportionally large sign board ‘East Indian Hotel’ hanging outside should have been a giveaway.
The writer then asks Tapesh who the girl was who then answered, somewhat sheepishly we are told, looking down at the table, “That was my wife”.
We are then told that as the average Bengali man is very particular about his wife being properly covered, and that Tapesh is embarrassed at a fellow Bengali seeing his wife so scantily attired. Enjoying his discomfiture the writer asks him, “ So, you have married here, eh?” “Yes it’s been about three years.” Continuing, almost in defiance, “These people are very good…. You won’t find a girl like her… or people like them.” The haltingly spoken words suggested an inner turmoil and the writer understood-that Tapesh loves his wife and it is somehow important for him to get this guest from his own land to approve. And his defence of the said ‘people’ was a superfluity. “It seems you have broken off all ties with your land.” Looking outside Tapesh replies, “ Yes, it does. Haven’t been back for seven years . There would be no point now”.
The writer ventures a guess that it was because he has no home or near and dear ones back there that Tapesh did not feel the urge to return, who then replied after a moment’s silence, looking down at the table, all the while drawing imaginary lines on it with his fingers, “I had everything-a home, people- still I left it all one day and came away here”.
Perhaps, the writer suggests to us, there was some tragedy in the young man’s life for him to leave everything behind, something like the death of a wife, or something else equally painful. Yes, it must be something like that which turned this man into a nomad, till he found peace in the love of this doe eyed damsel and decided to start afresh.
Curious to know the truth and yet vary of seeming to probe, the writer asks Tapesh if he had married earlier or if this was the first time. Tapesh looks up at him, eyes full of bitterness and disdain. For a moment the writer felt that he may have crossed a line but was soon reassured that the darkness of Tapesh’s mien was only the shadow cast by his past.The story, as it emerges finally, turns out to be somewhat bathetic, in spite of the high tragedy it promised. Seven years ago Tapesh had everything a man from his background would want- a house, albeit a modest one, in some Calcutta locality, a job, and a wife. He was happy or so he thought.
As it turned out his wife, pretty and sweet tempered as she was, had a flaw in her character. Not a major one, but a flaw nevertheless, and viewed as such by their immediate social circle. She was addicted to what in colloquial Bengali is called Paara berano or going visiting other women around the neighbourhood. Tapesh was duly informed of this by friends and neighbours. And this happened every day till Tapesh could take it no longer, this defiance of his master of the house status, and just left, never to go back.
By this point in the story dusk had fallen. The writer gets up to leave and makes an observation which he thought of as innocent, “Well, she hasn’t returned till now”, Tapesh replies, “There’s no rush, is there? After her shopping is done, she will visit other friends and pass the time of the day with them”.
And then, quickly looking up to see if there was a hint of censure or derision in his visitor’s eyes, he says, “It’s the norm here. No one minds. Good bye!”
The ironic nature of the story is obvious enough. So is the misappreciation, and the fault lines of our so called modern lives- objectification, a fake cosmopolitanism, and patriarchy (but also a critique of it). What I find particularly interesting is the similarity between this story set in times three quarters of a century ago and today, vis a vis the lack of awareness about the East Indian community. I should probably mention here that like so many of Bangla speaking children I too have grown up reading the work of Saradindu Bandopadhyay and loving it. I still admire his work greatly. Perhaps this was a reason that this mistake, or what I thought as a mistake, disturbed me not a little.
I too have been guilty of that, like others who have not lived in Mumbai and even most who have. The Hindi film industry has perpetuated this ignorance by essentializing the East Indian community and yet not really telling us who these people are, through their stereotypical Rosie the vamp; Michael, the underworld don’s henchman; the hooch selling Auntie: the pious and kind priest, going simply by the name Father; rarely, a slightly more fleshed out Mrs. D’sa, the strict land lady with a heart of gold from Anari(1959); and the ubiquitous but faceless Sandra from Bandra.
Till I read Godfrey Joseph Pereira’s delightful novel Bloodline Bandra (Harpers Collins, 2014.) Set mostly in Pali village in Bombay of the 1970s, it is, I believe, one of the few novels about the East Indian community.
Driven by my enthusiasm for the world described in the book I have gone back more than once to Mumbai and walked the area, looking for urban villages with musical, magical names like Pali, Chuim and Ranwar, dotted with Portuguese style villas, with narrow roads where people, bicycles, the occasional motorcar and the occasional pig vie for space, and for people like the funny, quirky characters from the book who speak English in their own distinctive fashion.
The places are there and yet not there. They are no longer quaint villages, but have merged with the concrete landscape of the metropolis. And the people in them are like everybody else in Mumbai. Maybe I should have looked more closely.
Jayant Dasgupta