Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

In late February Captain Mee held a briefing for Kesri and the other NCOs. With the aid of a large map and two interpreters, he explained that their company had been assigned to the Hind , a civilian transport ship that would take them to Singapore, and from there to southern China. Depending on the weather, the first leg of the journey would take fifteen to twenty days; the next might take a little less, but sailing times could not be predicted with any certainty. They could expect to leave after the retreat of the northerly monsoon, and before the onset of the summer rains — probably in March or April, which meant that their departure was now only a few weeks away.

The length of the voyage came as a surprise even to Kesri. None of his previous sea-journeys had lasted more than a week — it was daunting to think of spending a month or more at sea. It was not that he was concerned about the discomforts of the voyage: what worried him was the question of how to keep up the men’s morale so that they would be in a condition to fight when they reached their destination. Very few of them had ever sailed before and they all harboured that dread of the kalapani — the black water — that was prevalent in their home regions.

Kesri knew that Captain Mee’s briefing would stir the men’s misgivings and he was not wrong. One day a medical orderly came to tell him that one of the company’s sepoys had suffered a serious bayonet wound. When Kesri went to the infirmary to inquire, the man claimed that he had hurt himself accidentally. But Kesri knew at a glance that he was lying — the wound was in the fleshiest part of the thigh, where it would do the least harm. He guessed that the man had done it to himself, in the hope of getting out of the army with an unblemished record of service, so that he could keep all his battas and perhaps get a pension as well.

Captain Mee agreed with Kesri that they would have to make an example of this man if they were to prevent an outbreak of self-inflicted wounds: a court martial was quickly convened and the man was given a seven-year sentence of transportation, to be served on Prince of Wales Island.

*

Baboo Nob Kissin’s gaze was usually wary and vigilant, like that of a ruminant watching out for hungry predators. But Zachary’s presence often had a transformative effect on him, and now, as he pushed open the door of his stateroom, the Baboo’s eyes grew dewy and moist in anticipation of beholding the object of his devotion.

A year and several months had passed since Baboo Nob Kissin had last laid eyes on Zachary. Through most of that time he had been in China, with Mr Burnham; he had returned to Calcutta with his employer, on the Anahita . Had circumstances permitted he would have come at once to visit Zachary — but Mr Burnham had decided otherwise. On the very day of their return he had dispatched Baboo Nob Kissin to Patna and Ghazipur, to make inquiries about that season’s poppy crop. Now, having completed his mission, Baboo Nob Kissin had come hurrying to the budgerow, in the spirit of an eager pilgrim: as the door of the stateroom swung slowly open, he saw to his shock that Zachary was lying sprawled across the bed, clothed in nothing but his drawers, with his fingers still fastened on the neck of an almost empty bottle of rum.

In other circumstances the odour of sweat and liquor would have aroused Baboo Nob Kissin’s utmost revulsion, but this being Zachary he took the signs of drunkenness to be intimations of something unknown and unexpected, some perplexing mystery that would lead him towards illumination. Tiptoeing inside, the Baboo slowed his steps so that he could take full advantage of this rare opportunity for an unguarded darshan: as he contemplated the snoring, sweating figure his heart swelled up with the almost uncon-tainable emotion that Zachary sometimes inspired in his breast, transporting him back to the moment of his epiphany, when he had stepped on the Ibis for the first time.

That day walking aft, towards the officers’ cabins, Baboo Nob Kissin had heard the piping of a flute, the instrument of the divine flautist of Vrindavan, god of love as well as war. The sound of the flute had aroused a sudden stirring in his vitals. After a moment of alarm he had realized that the rumbling was not intestinal — it had been caused by the awakening of his late Gurumayee, Ma Taramony, who had transmigrated into his own body after shedding her earthly form. He had felt her coming to life and beginning to grow, like an embryo inside an egg, and he had known that the process would end only when the occupation of his body was complete and his own outward form was ready to be discarded, like a broken shell. He had fallen to his knees at the door of Zachary’s cabin; and just then it had flown open to reveal the flute-player himself — a sturdily built young man dressed in shirt and breeches, with a dusting of freckles and a head of dark, curly hair.

It was a comely vision, not unworthy of a messenger of the beautiful Banka-bihari of Vrindavan: only in one respect was it disappointing and this was in the colour of his skin, which was of an ivory tint and utterly different from the blue-black hue of the Dark Lord. But the Butter-Thieving Imp was nothing if not playful and Baboo Nob Kissin had always known that when the Sign came its carrier would be wrapped in many disguises in order to test his powers of perception. The truth, he knew, would be hidden in some unexpected place — and sure enough, he had found it while examining the Ibis ’s crew list: there, recorded against the name ‘Zachary Reid’, was the word ‘black’ under the column of ‘race’.

Baboo Nob Kissin had needed no other confirmation; it was exactly as he had known it would be: the outward appearance of the messenger was but a disguise for his inner being, an aspect of the flux and transformation of the material world, of Samsara. He had torn the page from the log-book and hugged the secret to himself: it had become his bond with Zachary, the relic that marked the beginning of his own transformation.

From that day on the barrier that separated Baboo Nob Kissin’s spiritual and material lives had begun to dissolve. Till then he had always been careful to separate the sphere of his inward striving from the domain of his profane existence as a cunning and ruthless practitioner of the worldly arts who prided himself on promoting the interests of his employer, Mr Benjamin Burnham. The transformation initiated by Zachary’s arrival had swept away the embankment that separated the two rivers of Baboo Nob Kissin’s being; like a tide surging over a bund, the love and compassion of his inner life had flooded into the channel of his gomusta-dom and the two streams had gradually merged into one vast, surging flow of love and compassion.

None of this would have happened, Baboo Nob Kissin knew, but for Zachary’s advent into his life: this was the emissary’s singular gift: that he possessed the power of animating mighty emotions in the hearts of all who came into his orbit — love and desire, rage and envy, compassion and generosity. Yet — and this too was a sign of who he was — the youthful emissary was utterly unaware of the effect he had on those around him.

The trance was not broken even when Zachary opened his eyes, and snapped irritably, ‘Hey Baboo, I didn’t hear you knock. What’re you gawpin at like that?’

‘Like what?’ said the gomusta.

‘Like a pig lookin at a turd.’

Baboo Nob Kissin was not unused to being sharply addressed by the vessel of his devotion; indeed he expected and even craved these outbursts, thinking of them as reminders of the obstacles that lay strewn upon the path he had embarked upon. But for the sake of appearances, he made a pretence of huffiness, puffing up his chest in indignation until it filled out his capacious alkhalla robe: ‘Arré? But who is staring? Just only looking and keep-quieting. Why I should stare? Mind also has eyes no? Earthly forms are not necessary for those who can perceive hidden meanings.’