Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Where is he now? Where did he grow up? Tell me about him, Vico — now that I know about him, I need to hear more.

Bibiji, he was brought up by his mother, in Canton. Sethji was always generous with them. He bought her a big boat and she turned it into an eating place. She did quite well, I think, at least for a while. But she died some years ago.

And the boy, Freddie, did he work in the eatery?

Yes, he did when he was little. But Sethji wanted to give him a proper education so he hired tutors for him and made sure that he learnt English. But still, the boy didn’t have an easy time of it. In Canton even ordinary boat-people are treated like outcastes and he wasn’t even a boat-boy.

Shireen could not sit still any more. She went to a window and looked out towards the sea.

Vico, there is something you must do for me.

Yes, Bibiji.

I want to meet quietly with Mr Karabedian. The family must not know, not even my daughters. Can you arrange this? Why not, Bibiji?

How will you do it?

After a moment’s reflection, Vico said: Bibiji, let us do it this way. You inform your family that my wife has invited you to visit our house next week and that we will take you to Bassein in a private boat. They can’t raise any objection to that, no?

No.

And the rest you can leave to me.

October 20, 1839

Honam

Quiet though it is, Honam Island is not without surprises. Nearby lies a Buddhist monastery which is said to be one of the largest in the province. It is called the Haizhuang or ‘Ocean Banner’ monastery — Vico used to talk about it; I’d heard from him that there were many Tibetan monks living there.

I started visiting the Ocean Banner Monastery soon after I moved to Honam. It is a vast honeycomb of a place, with monumental statues, ancient trees and gilded shrines. One could lose oneself there for days.

Sometimes I would come across groups of Tibetan monks. Recognizing me as an ‘Achha’ they’d smile and nod. I would have liked to speak with them, but there was no language in common. The monks speak very little Cantonese.

But one day, while I was wandering through the inner courtyards of the monastery, I made the acquaintance of an elderly lama. His face is like some ancient river-bed, cross-hatched by deeply scored grooves. Clinging to the cracks and wrinkles, like tenacious plants, are a few white hairs. That day he was sitting in the shade of a banyan tree and he called me over with a wave. As I approached, his lips parted in a smile, revealing a few pebble-like teeth. Then he joined his hands together and uttered a greeting — Ka halba?

Bhojpuri? In Canton? Spoken by a Tibetan lama?

At first I was literally bereft of speech.

The lama told me that he had spent many years in Sarnath, where the Buddha first preached the Dharma; that was where he learnt Bhojpuri. He even has a Bhojpuri name: Taranathji.

I asked what other places he had seen and a flood of stories came pouring out.

Taranathji is almost eighty now, and he has travelled very widely. At the time of the Qing dynasty’s Gurkha wars, he served as a translator for the Chinese commander, the Manchu General Fukanggan; he spent many years in the retinue of the last Panchen Lama, serving as his interpreter when the British sent a Naga sadhu, Purangir, as an emissary to Tibet. He has disputed theological matters with Russian Orthodox priests and has preached in the lamaseries of northern Mongolia. The mountains, deserts and plains that lie sprawled across this vast continent are like rivers and seas to him: he has crossed them many times. He has travelled to Beijing, with the Panchen Lama; he was even present at one of his meetings with the Qianlong Emperor.

He said something that amazed me: was I aware, he asked, that the Qianlong Emperor, the greatest ruler of the Qing dynasty, had written a book about Hindustan?

I stared at him, astounded, and confessed that I had no knowledge of this.

Taranathji’s eye twinkled. Yes, he said, such a book did indeed exist. In the latter years of his life the Qianlong Emperor had been much concerned with Yindu — or Enektek, as the Manchus called it. This was because the Qing had extended the borders of China into Tibet, up to the very frontiers of India, which had resulted in many new problems for them. Perhaps the most bothersome was that of Nepal and its Gurkha kings, who had harboured designs on Tibet. After repeated provocations, the Qianlong Emperor had sent an army into Nepal and the Gurkhas had been soundly beaten. At one stage the Gurkhas had even tried to get assistance from the British — unsucces sfully however, for the East India Company had demurred, for fear of jeopardizing its lucrative trade relations with China. The Gurkhas were thus vanquished, and became tributaries of China; in the years since they have served as Beijing’s chief channel of information about Bengal and Hindustan.

Taranathji told me also that over the years the Gurkhas have given the Qing many warnings about the British and their ever increasing appetites. If China did not act quickly, they had told them, then the British would threaten them too one day; they had even proposed joint attacks on the East India Company’s territories in Bengal, by a combined Gurkha and Qing expeditionary force. If only their warnings had been heeded in Beijing, if only the Emperors had acted decisively at that time, then China would have been in a different situation today. But the Gurkhas’ warnings were ignored because the Qing did not entirely trust them; nor were they convinced that the Firingees the Nepalis spoke of were the same people as the Yinglizis who traded at Canton.

All of this was new to me. After a while I could no longer contain my amazement. I told Taranathji that he was a living treasure and that he should meet Zhong Lou-si.

Taranathji told me then that he knows Zhong Lou-si and has spoken at length with him and other highly placed officials, not just in Guangzhou but also in Beijing. They have questioned him about his travels and he has tried to share his knowledge of the world to the best of his ability. How much of it they have actually taken in he does not know.

It is not a lack of curiosity that hinders the mandarins, he says: their problem lies with their methods and procedures. They have an instinctive distrust of spoken reports; they place far greater reliance on written documents. When they hear something new, they are reluctant to give it credence unless they can reconcile it with everything they have learnt from older books.

Since then I have paid Taranathji a few more visits. Every time I go I am amazed by his stories. When I took up residence in Baburao’s houseboat, I had not imagined that there would be so much to learn, so close by.

The next parcel from the big house arrived sooner than Zachary had expected. He opened it with much trepidation, expecting to find a lengthy reproof of his conduct in the sewing room, but Mrs Burnham’s note made no reference to that incident.

October 25, 1839

Dear Mr Reid

Dr Allgood has lent me another book — a Treatise by Dr Tissot, a very famous Practitioner of medicine. This volume is, I gather, the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of your Condition that is presently available. I have spent two days reading it, and I must confess that it has made me quite ill. My sympathy for you grows ever more keen when I imagine you labouring in the grip of this frightful Malady.

I implore you to read the Book with the greatest care, and when you are done, I shall arrange a Meeting. Until then, I beg you to be mindful of the Author’s warnings — let us hope that it is not too late already.

Yours & c.

C.B.

The letter so alarmed Zachary that his fingers began to shake as he tore apart the parcel’s paper wrappings. Nor did the book’s title — Onanism, or a Treatise upon the Diseases Produced by Masturbation: or, the Dangerous Effects of Secret and Excessive Venery — allay his fears in the slightest. When he started to read, his apprehensions turned quickly into a horrified fascination and he could not stop turning the pages. Dr Tissot provided ample evidence to show that onanism was not only a disease in itself, but that it also served as a gateway for a great host of other diseases: paralysis, epilepsy, feeble-mindedness, impotence and various disorders of the kidneys, testes, bladder and bowels.