Neel Mukherjee - A Life Apart

‘So I’ve said to her, by all means, do as much swadeshi as you feel like, but you might have a few problems making your lessons with Miss Gilby follow such lines, not unless you give up your French perfumes, too.’

Bimala pretends mock anger and accuses her husband of exposing her little failures in front of Miss Gilby, but it is all a joke, all playacting, and the little cloud that threatened to settle overhead passes swiftly.

‘Now, Miss Gilby, I do not know whether Bimala has already mentioned this to you but I wanted to let you know that my friend, Sandip — a childhood friend, we go back a long way — will be coming to stay here with us for a while. I was wondering if we could talk about it when you have some time to spare?’

‘But of course, Mr Roy Chowdhury. What about teatime this afternoon? Bimala can sing one of her lovely Bengali songs, while I accompany her on the piano. What do you say, Bimala?’

Bimala nods enthusiastically. Mr Roy Chowdhury is so surprised at Miss Gilby’s sure, swift ease with the Bengali world that he remains speechless for a few moments.

18th OCTOBER 1905

Despite the earnest protests of millions of people, the Government has gone through with its insidious and deplorable partition of Bengal on the 16th of October. In anticipation of large-scale rioting and disorderly protests, an unprecedented number of policemen were deployed on the streets of Calcutta but it gives us great satisfaction to report that the infamous day passed peacefully in the city and hundreds of other towns and villages all over undivided Bengal. The people turned this most egregious of political offences into a day of brotherhood and friendship by tying

rakhis

on to the wrist of their brothers and fellow men. And it was not only on to each others’ arms that the Hindus and Mohammedans, united in love and common destiny, tied

rakhis

, but also on to the arms of bemused policemen andsoldiers, thus showing that the Bengali race will not be provoked or broken by the divisive policies of Lord Curzon.We will turn all actions against us to our advantage, our silent and peaceful resistance will be our biggest victory. This was the day when Lord Curzon went down in the annals of history forever but not for the reasons he understands: for this was the day when the clock started ticking for the English Government in India and the man who set it ticking was Lord Curzon.

Throughout the city shops were closed, businesses shut, schools, colleges, transport, everything on strike. Every single Bengali had taken to the streets, now a sea of heads,from early in the morning until 9 p.m. It was a show of unity and harmony, of peace and love, of strong determination. In the following days, we shall be reporting to you the spread of swadeshi throughout undivided Bengal.

The Bengalee

, Calcutta.

PARTITION DAY PASSES PEACEFULLY

With Lord Curzon, the infamous architect of the partition of Bengal, hiding in England after having drawn out a ridiculous drama of resignation, the division came into effect from the 16 thof October, a day celebrated — for what other word can be used for this day? — by a massive general strike and a public

rakhi bandhan

ceremony. Every factory, mill, school, college, court, shop, business was closed for the day, a unified cry of protest against an act on which the people it affects most were not consulted. The partition, let us repeat, was done over the heads of the people and in this the Government at Simla showed that peculiar mixture of arrogance, evasiveness and tyranny, which has come to characterize it so singularly.

But if the Government was afraid, indeed expectant of any violence or disorder that was being predicted, the disciplined Bengalis took the very wind out of their sails by turning the day into one of pride in the unity and brotherhood of all Bengali men, Hindus and Mussulmans, scholar and worker, farmer and lawyer. The streets of Calcutta were thronged with people from all backgrounds, singing

Amaar sonar Bangla and Bande mataram

, the sky resounding with the sound of proud nationhood.

We can only thank Lord Curzon, for the act which was meant to divide Bengal, administratively, geographically, racially, has brought us all together as brothers. The strength of the Bengali will has been put to the test and we have come out triumphant. History will have more to show. Simla, take note.

Amrita BazarPatrika

,Calcutta,October18, 1905.

They talk of burnt bridges. Sometimes it is a choice, at other times, enforced, but more often than not the fall of the die takes in both. There are documents, stamps, official insignia, computer-held records, databases, monitors of exits and entries, date stamps, place stamps, ports of entry, records, papers, hard disks, officers, institutions, regulations, limitations, hedge after hedge, wall after wall, moat after moat regulating movements in and out, out and in. Life is calibrated in signs, the swift impress of inked rubber and metal on paper, the brief clatter of keys, a few hits of the return key, information stored in chips. That is all. There are no events, only records. To give all this the slip is to drop out of official, recorded life, of validated life. It is to move from life to existence. On the 21 stof December, Ritwik Ghosh will do exactly that: he will silently let his leave to remain in England expire and become a virtual prisoner in this new land. He will not have access to banking, medical care, foreign travel, proper jobs, the welfare state, benefits, nothing. Not even an address, which can be used by other people to write to him, in case the post office people are alerted to his name. The vast grid of the impeccably ordered and arranged first-world modern democratic state will no longer hold him. He will become a shadow behind that grid, a creature with a past but no future, only a teased out mirage of a present. A ghost in limbo. Imprisoned forever but with infinite freedom.

And all for a better, a new life.

The die lands on crossroads. What determines things? The shift in wind direction? The fall of a russet leaf? An ordering of air atoms that makes the die fall that face up and not another?

There are no answers except for that fall of a die, the unshaping of clouds, the head turned around at crossroads, a door ajar, another closed. Choice and chance.

If he is asked, he will reply, ‘I didn’t want to go back to India because it is too hot out there. I would like to live in a cooler land.’

Choice.

What makes a presence illegal just because another set of keys haven’t been touched, another sheaf of papers marked and moved around?

Three weeks after Ritwik’s conversation with Mr Haq, Saeed Latif rolled up outside Mrs Cameron’s door at three in the morning and sounded his car horn — dash dash dot dot dash style — just as Shahid Haq had said he would. Ritwik had lain awake most of the night because he didn’t want to miss the signal. That would have meant ringing the doorbell and waking up Anne who, for all he knew, was wide awake anyway, god knows, that woman seemed to survive on no more than three hours a night.

The car shocked him. He didn’t know what he was expecting, perhaps a dirty, scraped, dented, secondhand one, but certainly not this long, beige obscenity, a tired Freudian joke suddenly come alive and purring outside his front door. The low-slung Mercedes had a left-hand drive and a swish leather and wood interior. It was either very new or Saaed Latif spent a lot of time everyday lavishing love and care on his machine. He opened the passenger door for Ritwik and asked, ‘You like car?’

Famous first words.

Saeed Latif could have been any age from twenty to thirty-five, had very pale skin, and was probably Middle Eastern in origin but Ritwik wasn’t very good at placing people. In fact, it was only recently that he had started thinking about where people came from originally because everyone in London seemed to have arrived from somewhere else.