Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

One day a stranger stopped Dolly on the street: ‘Is it true that you worked in the Mandalay palace, in the time of King Thebaw?’ When Dolly answered in the affirmative the stranger gave her a smile. ‘Prepare yourself: there is soon to be another coronation. A prince has been found who will liberate Burma. .’

A few days later they learnt that there had indeed been a coronation of sorts, not far from Rangoon: a healer by the name of Saya San had had himself crowned King of Burma, with all the traditional observances. He’d gathered together a motley band of soldiers and told them to avenge the capture of King Thebaw.

These rumours reminded Uma of the events that preceded the outbreak of the Indian uprising of 1857. Then too, well before the firing of the first shot, signs of trouble had appeared on the north Indian plains. Chapatis — those most unremarkable of everyday foods — had begun to circulate from village to village, as though in warning. No one knew where they came from or who had put them in motion — but somehow people had known that a great convulsion was on its way.

Uma’s premonition was proved right. The uprising started in the interior of Tharawaddy district, where a forest official and two village headmen were killed; the next day rebels stormed a railway station. A company of Indian troops was sent to hunt down the insurgents. But suddenly the rebels were everywhere: in Insein, Yamthin and Pyapon. They appeared like shadows from the forest, with magical designs painted on their bodies. They fought like men possessed, running bare-chested into gunfire, attacking aeroplanes with catapults and spears. Thousands of rural folk declared their allegiance to the King-in-waiting. The colonial authorities fought back by sending more Indian reinforcements to root out the rebellion. Villages were occupied, hundreds of Burmese were killed and thousands wounded.

For Uma, the uprising and the means of its suppression were the culmination of a month-long nightmare: it was as though she were witnessing the realisation of her worst fears; once again. Indian soldiers were being used to fortify the Empire. Nobody in India seemed to know of these events; no one seemed to care. It seemed imperative that someone should take on the task of letting the people of her country know.

It so happened that KLM, the Dutch airline, had recently started a plane service linking a chain of cities between Batavia and Amsterdam. There were now regular flights between Rangoon’s new airstrip at Mingaladon and Calcutta’s Dum Dum. The journey from Rangoon to Calcutta took some six hours — a fraction of the sailing time. Uma was by now too distraught to undertake the four-day steamship voyage: Rajkumar bought her a ticket on KLM.

In the Packard, on the way out to the airstrip at Mingaladon, Uma became tearful. ‘I can’t believe what I’ve seen here — the same old story, Indians being made to kill for the Empire, fighting people who should be their friends. .’

She was interrupted by Rajkumar: ‘Uma, you’re talking nonsense.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Uma, have you for one moment stopped to ask yourself what would happen if these soldiers weren’t used? You were here during the riots: you saw what happened. What do you think these rebels would do to us — to me, to Dolly, to the boys? Don’t you see that it’s not just the Empire those soldiers are protecting, it’s also Dolly and me?’

The anger that Uma had held contained since Morningside came welling up. ‘Rajkumar, you’re in no position to offer opinions. It’s people like you who’re responsible for this tragedy. Did you ever think of the consequences when you were transporting people here? What you and your kind have done is far worse than the worst deeds of the Europeans.’

As a rule Rajkumar never challenged Uma on political matters. But he was on edge too now, and something snapped. ‘You have so many opinions, Uma — about things of which you know nothing. For weeks now I’ve heard you criticising everything you see: the state of Burma, the treatment of women, the condition of India, the atrocities of the Empire. But what have you yourself ever done that qualifies you to hold these opinions? Have you ever built anything? Given a single person a job? Improved anyone’s life in any way? No. All you ever do is stand back, as though you were above all of us, and you criticise and criticise. Your husband was as fine a man as any I’ve ever met, and you hounded him to his death with your self-righteousness.’

‘How dare you?’ Uma cried. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? You — an animal, with your greed, your determination to take whatever you can — at whatever cost. Do you think nobody knows about the things you’ve done to people in your power — to women and children who couldn’t defend themselves? You’re no better than a slaver and a rapist, Rajkumar. You may think that you will never have to answer for the things you’ve done, but you’re wrong.’

Without a further word to Uma, Rajkumar leant over to U Ba Kyaw and told him to stop the car. Then he stepped out on the road and said to Dolly: ‘I’ll find my own way back to the city. You see her off. I don’t want anything to do with her.’

At Mingaladon, Uma and Dolly found the plane waiting on the airstrip. It was a trimotor Fokker F-VIII, with a silver fuselage and wings that were held up by struts. Once they were out of the car, Dolly said in hushed voice: ‘Uma, you’re very angry with Rajkumar and I suspect I know why. But you should not judge him too harshly, you know; you must remember that I too bear some of the guilt. .’

They were at the gates; Uma held Dolly fast.

‘Dolly, will this change everything — for us, you and me?’

‘No. Of course not. I’ll come to see you in Calcutta, whenever I can. It’ll be all right — you’ll see?’

At the other end of the Bay of Bengal, in Calcutta, Uma’s brother and his family were waiting to receive her at the Dum Dum airstrip.

Her brother was a quiet and somewhat colourless man who worked in the accounts department of a shipping company. His wife was a severe asthmatic who rarely left the house. Of their children, Bela, a girl, was the youngest, at six. Her siblings were twins and they were a full seven years older. The older twin was a boy, Arjun; the younger was a girl and she went by her family nickname, Manju. Her given name — marvellous to recount — was ‘Brihannala’, which proved obdurately resistant to everyday use.

For the twins, Uma’s arrival in Calcutta was an event of unparalleled significance. This was not just because of who she was: it was at least partly because no one in the family had ever had occasion to go to Dum Dum before. It was just ten years since an aeroplane was first seen in Calcutta: in 1920, a Handley Page had been received at the racecourse by cheering crowds. Since then, planes belonging to Imperial Airways and Air France had also touched down in the city. But it was KLM that had started the first regular passenger service and the drama of its recently instituted comings and goings had held the city in thrall for months.

On the day of Uma’s arrival the excitement in the house was such that the family went to the unprecedented step of hiring a car, a new 1930 Austin Chummy. But the twins’ expectations were dashed on their arrival at the Dum Dum airstrip: there was nothing there but a stretch of tarmac, bordered by rice fields and coconut palms. This was too new a means of travel to have developed the trappings of ceremony. There was none of the pomp that accompanied an expedition to the docks: no uniformed sailors or peaked caps or beribboned harbourmasters. The terminal was a tin-roofed shed and the personnel consisted of foul-mouthed mechanics in grease-blackened overalls. What there was of a sense of occasion derived from the presence of the crowd of supporters who’d come to welcome Uma.