Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Then Rajkumar did something he had never done before. Just as he was about to walk through the door, he stooped to touch Saya John’s feet, in the Indian way.

‘Give me your blessings, Saya.’

Saya John turned his head to hide the tears that had welled into his eyes. ‘That which a man takes for himself no one can deny him. The contract will be yours, Rajkumar. I was wrong to doubt it.’

The post came twice a week and was delivered directly to the Collector’s office in the Cutchery. Uma’s letters were usually picked out by the Collector and sent up to the Residency with a peon. Her mail was mostly from her parents but once or twice each month there was also a book or a magazine, posted by a Calcutta bookshop.

On maildays Uma spent hours daydreaming by the peepul tree. If she happened to have one of her official appointments she would be snappish and impatient, eager to get back to her letters. She’d think of her mother, at home in Calcutta, writing in bed, worrying about her inkwell and spills on the sheets.

One mailday morning the Collector’s peon delivered a letter with an unusual postmark. The Collector had scrawled a note on the envelope: ‘From Rangoon.’ Uma turned the envelope over and saw her uncle’s name on the back, D.P. Roy. She was surprised: it was years since she’d last heard from him. But after her marriage she’d grown accustomed to receiving letters from long-unseen relatives: the Collector wielded a lot of influence; he was a man who could get things done. She surmised that her uncle needed something.

She took the letter down to the peepul tree. Just as she’d expected, her uncle had written to ask a favour, on behalf of a friend — a Rajkumar Raha who was on his way to Bombay on business. The man had expressed a desire to come down to Ratnagiri for a quick visit. He was keen to pay his respects to the former King and Queen.

‘I would be very grateful, Uma, if your husband could arrange for Rajkumar-babu to call on the former King. Having somehow learnt of my connection with the Collector, he expressly sought me out to request my help in this matter. I might add that I am indebted to Rajkumar-babu for several good turns — indeed many members of our Bengali community in Rangoon have benefited from his assistance in one way or another.’

Rajkumar-babu, the letter continued, had lived in Rangoon many years but for much of that time he had had no contact with the other Bengalis of the city. Then suddenly one morning, he had dropped down like a hailstone from the sky, right into the Durga temple on Spark Street, the gathering-place of the city’s Hindu Bengalis. He had come perfectly costumed for the occasion, in a starched white dhoti and a gold-buttoned punjabi. To ease his entry he had taken the precaution of bringing along a substantial donation for the purohit.

It turned out that Mr Raha was in the timber trade. He was planning to make a bid for a major contract and had come to ask the purohit to pray for him. Like all his kind the purohit had the intuition of a famished tiger when it came to the judging of potential prey. He did much more than offer a blessing. At the temple there were several employees of the big European banks and timber companies: the purohit made it his business to introduce Rajkumar-babu to all these men.

Over the next few days messages had flown back and forth between Spark Street and Merchant Street, between the Kalibari and the offices of the timber companies. Finally, when the directors of the Chota-Nagpur Railway Company announced their decision, it was learnt that one Mr Rajkumar Raha, a name then unknown in the world of teak, had succeeded in underbidding all the major companies.

On that contract alone Rajkumar-babu had netted a profit of eight lakh rupees — a fortune. Out of gratitude he’d virtually rebuilt the temple, paving its floors in marble, gilding the walls of the shrine and erecting a beautiful new dwelling for the purohit and his family. Since that time he had had several other successes and had risen to eminence within the business community. And all this at the age of thirty, before he had even had time to marry.

You will understand what I mean, Uma, when I say that our Rajkumar-babu is not the kind of person to whose society you are accustomed. You may well find him somewhat rough and even uncouth in his manner. You will no doubt be astonished to learn that although he speaks several languages fluently, including English and Burmese, he is for all practical purposes, an illiterate, barely able to sign his own name.

At home in India a man like Rajkumar-babu would stand little chance of gaining acceptance in the society of people like ourselves. But here in Burma our standards are a little more lax. Some of the richest people in the city are Indians, and most of them began with nothing more than a bundle of clothes and a tin box.

I fully understand that in India a man of Rajkumar-babu’s station could scarcely hope to be entertained — or even received — by a District Collector. But you must consider that he has lived in Burma so long that he is now more Burmese than Indian and may well be counted as a foreigner. I hope you will make allowance for this, recalling that I for one would certainly be very grateful for your condescension in this matter.

Also associated with maildays was a special treat: fresh ice, shipped out from Bombay on the steamer. On mailday evenings the Collector liked to sit out in the garden, on a wicker chair, with an iced drink. Uma waited until the Collector had been served his whisky before she started reading him her uncle’s letter. At the end of her recital the Collector took the sheet of paper from her and read it through himself.

He handed the letter back with a gesture of regret. ‘If it were within my power,’ he said, ‘I would have liked to oblige your uncle. But unfortunately it’s out of the question. The Government’s instructions are quite clear. Their Highnesses are not to have visitors.’

‘But why not?’ Uma cried. ‘You’re the Collector. You could let him come if you wanted to. No one needs to know.’

The Collector placed his glass abruptly on the small peg table that stood by his chair. ‘It’s impossible, Uma. I’d have to forward the request to Bombay and from there it would be sent on to the Colonial Secretary in London. It could take months.’

‘Just for a visit to Outram House?’

‘Our teachers,’ the Collector began — it was a running joke with him to speak of his British colleagues as amader gurujon— ‘our teachers don’t want political trouble in Burma. It’s their richest province and they don’t want to take any risks. The King is the one person who could bring the country together, against them. There are more than a dozen different tribes and peoples there. The monarchy is the only thing they have in common. Our teachers know this and they want to make sure that the King is forgotten. They don’t wish to be cruel; they don’t want any martyrs; all they want is that the King should be lost to memory — like an old umbrella in a dusty cupboard.’

‘But what difference could a single visitor make?’

‘He might get back and talk. Something could get into the newspapers. The Colonial Office won’t even allow the King to be photographed for fear that the picture could get back to Burma. The other day I had a letter from a photographer, a Parsee woman. She’s out on a picture-taking tour and wanted to stop by to take some photographs at Outram House. I forwarded her request to Bombay and heard back within the week: no pictures of the Royal Family are to be allowed. Government policy.’