Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Before he left for the academy, she’d never quite understood why her friends thought him so good-looking: to her he was just Arjun, his face a brother’s. Then he came back for that visit and it was as though she were seeing him for the first time. She’d had to admit that he’d made quite an impression, with his moustache coming along nicely and his hair cut short. She’d been jealous, afraid that he wouldn’t want to spend time with her. But he’d been quick to put her fears at rest. He’d sat on the sill every day, dressed in his usual vest and scruffy old longyi. They’d chatted for hours and she’d peeled him oranges or mangoes or lychees — he was just as hungry as he’d ever been.

He’d talked endlessly about the 1st Jat Light Infantry. He’d applied to half a dozen other regiments but right from the start there was only one that he really wanted — and that was the 1st Jats. Part of the reason was that his friend Hardy had applied to the 1st Jats too, and was almost certain to get in. He came from an old army family and his father and grandfather had both served in the regiment. But, of course, it was different for Arjun — he had no army connections — and he had prepared himself for a disappointment. As a result he was overjoyed when he heard that the regiment had accepted him:

The night when I was formally dined into the regiment was probably the happiest of my life. Even as I’m writing this, I realize that this will probably seem strange to you, Manju. But the thing of it is that it’s true: you have to remember that the regiment is going to be my home for the next fifteen to twenty years — perhaps even more, if things don’t go too well with my career and I never get a staff appointment (God forbid!).

What I’m really chuffed about, though, is my battalion. This’ll probably surprise you, for civilians always think that the regiment is the most important thing about the army. But actually, in the Indian army, a regiment is just a collection of symbols — colours, flags, and so on. We’re proud of our regiments of course, but they’re not operational units and just about the only time when all the battalions of a regiment get together is when there’s a Changing of the Colours — and it takes donkey’s years for that to happen.

The rest of the time you live and work with your battalion and that’s what really matters: your life can be hell if you find yourself thrown in with the wrong sort of crowd. But once again I’ve been hellishly lucky— Hardy pulled a couple of his ‘ fauji ’ strings and made sure we were both in the same battalion — the First. Officially, we’re the 1/1 Jat Light Infantry, but everyone just calls us the 1/1 Jats — except that every now and again you’ll come across some ancient Colonel Walrus who’ll still use our old name, which was ‘the Royal’. The story is that the battalion fought so well in the Mahratta Wars that when Lord Lake reached the coast, he honoured us with a special title: The Royal Battalion. Yesterday Hardy and I were looking at the battalion’s battle honours, and I swear to you, Manju, the list was as long as my arm. During the Mutiny our troops stayed loyal — one of our companies was in the column that captured the old Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, at his hidy-hole at Humayun’s tomb. I noticed something that I bet would interest Dinu and Neel — the Royal was in Burma during General Prendergast’s advance on Mandalay and it fought so well that it came to be known as ‘ Jamail-sahib ki dyni haat hi paltan ’—the general’s right-hand battalion.

To tell you the truth, Manju, it’s just a little overwhelming even to think of all this. You should see the list of our medals: a Victoria Cross from the Somme; two Military Crosses for putting down the Arab rebellion in Mesopotamia in ’18; a half-dozen DSOs and OBEs from when we fought the Boxer rebels in China. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I still find it hard to believe that I really belong with these men. It makes one so proud, but also humble, to think that one has all this to live up to. What makes me prouder still is the thought that Hardy and I are going to be the first Indian officers in the 1/1 Jats: it seems like such a huge responsibility — as though we’re representing the whole of the country!

To top it all, we have an absolutely spiffing CO— Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland — whom everybody calls Bucky. To look at you’d think he’s not a soldier at all, more like a professor. He came to lecture at the academy a couple of times: he was so good that he even managed to make Military History interesting. He’s also an operations wizard and the men love him. His family’s been with the 1/1 Jats since the time when we were called the Royal Battalion, and I don’t think there’s a man on the base whose name he doesn’t know. And it’s not just their names either — he knows which village they’re from and who’s married to whose daughter and how much dowry they paid. Of course, I’m so junior I can’t be sure he even knows I exist.

It’s Guest Night at the Nursery tonight, so I’d better go. My new batman is busy ironing my cummerbund, and I can tell from the way he’s looking at me that it’s time to get into my dinner jacket. His name is Kishan Singh and I just got him a few weeks ago. He’s a weedy, earnest-looking fellow and at first I didn’t think he’d do, but he’s turned out quite well. Do you remember that book Uma-pishi sent me — the O. Henry stories? You’ll never believe it, but I’d left it by my bed and one night I walked in and found him with his nose stuck in it. He had a puzzled frown on his face, like a bear clawing at a wireless set. He was scared half out of his mind at being found looking into my book — just stood there like a statue. So I told him the story about the lost necklace. You should have seen him, standing there as though he were at a court-martial, staring at the wall, while I went through the pages, translating into Hindustani. At the end of it, I barked at him, in my best parade-ground voice: ‘Kishan Singh! What do you think of this kahani ?’

And he said: ‘Sahib, it’s a very sad story. .’ I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. They’re very sentimental, these faujis, despite their moustaches and bloodshot eyes. It’s true what the Britishers say: at heart they’re very unspoilt; the salt of the earth — you can depend on them to be faithful. Just the kind of men you’d want by your side in a tight spot.

It was Arjun’s letter that made Manju reconsider the idea of a screen test. There was her twin, hundreds of miles away, drinking whisky, eating at the officers’ mess and getting his batman to iron his dinner jacket. And here she was in Calcutta, in the same room she’d been in all her life, braiding her hair into pigtails as she’d done since she was seven. The awful thing was that he hadn’t even made a pretence of missing home.

She was on her own now, and she would have to think about what she was going to do with herself. So far as her mother was concerned, Manju knew, her future had already been decided: she would leave the house as someone’s wife and not a day sooner. The mothers of two prospective grooms had already come calling to ‘see’ Manju. One of them had given her hair a discreet tug to make sure she wasn’t wearing a wig; the other had made her bare her teeth as though she were a horse, pushing apart her lips with her fingers, and making faint clucking sounds. Her mother had been apologetic afterwards, but she’d made it clear that it wasn’t in her power to ensure that these incidents would not be repeated: this was a part of the process. Manju knew that many more such ordeals probably lay ahead.