Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

The tears which rolled down his cheeks on the day he invited the villagers into the school to hear his last speech as headmaster were therefore very real and painful tears. When his twenty young men led in the villagers, the tears were pouring down in a stream. Through his own he saw answering tears in the crowd. Don’t worry, he wept, waving a consoling hand at the garlanded pictures of himself which had been arrayed behind him on the podium. These aren’t going away. They’re going to be closer to you than ever. They’ll be right among you, everywhere, in the banyan tree, in your houses, in your shops. You’ll never be far from me.

The tears flowed faster as he read accusations into the crowd’s silent, fixed gaze. I couldn’t help it, he cried. It had to come to an end. It was a good school in its time, but that time is past. A new time beckons. The time to teach is over. The time has come to serve the people.

The time has come, he said, his tears drying on his cheeks, for straight lines. The trouble with this village is that there aren’t enough straight lines. Look at Europe, look at America, look at Tokyo: straight lines, that’s the secret. Everything is in straight lines. The roads are straight, the houses are straight, the cars are straight (except for the wheels). They even walk straight. That’s what we need: straight lines. There’s a time and an age for everything, and this is the age of the straight line.

He stopped and his eyes scanned the crowd. Unerringly, with an inevitable certainty, they found Balaram, his alter ego , his doppelgänger , the twin who had journeyed with him so long through the same school, and there was not a soul in that schoolyard who would not have sworn that he was asking Balaram for his approval.

But Balaram was looking away, his face strained with concentration, his head cocked, for all the world as though he were listening to a voice. But that voice was not Bhudeb Roy’s.

Do you think that was when he thought of it? Alu asked Gopal one day when he was in hiding in Calcutta after it was all over.

Yes, said Gopal sadly, he told me so. In a way it was only natural — he had to think of something. After all, the closing of the school meant the end of his livelihood. But Balaram being what he was, of course, that was the last thing on his mind. By that time he was certain that Bhudeb Roy was lying about his reasons for closing the school down. He was quite convinced that it was really the carbolic or antiseptic or whatever it was. He told me so. He said: Bhudeb Roy lives in mortal fear; there is nothing in the world that he fears as much as carbolic acid. His whole life is haunted by his fear of antiseptic. He’d do anything, go to any lengths to destroy my carbolic acid. He fears it as he fears everything that is true and clean and a child of Reason. He’s closing the school down because he thinks it’ll put an end to my work with disinfectants.

Of course, it all seemed very strange to me, so I said: But, Balaram, be reasonable. Surely he could find other ways of putting an end to your work with carbolic acid? Maybe he really is busy and wants more time for his work or politics or something like that …

Balaram was very angry. He said: Don’t be a fool, Gopal. I know that man. I’ve grown old with him. I’ve watched Ideality and Wonder and Hope disappear into depressions in his skull, and I’ve watched his squamous suture bloat like a dead dog in a ditch. There’s nothing I don’t know about that man. I know him better than I know myself. And I know this: he lives in terror of carbolic acid, and he’ll do anything he can to destroy my supplies. But I’ve learnt my lessons, too, and he won’t find it easy. I’ll fight him to the end. I know how. I knew it when he started talking about straight lines.

So that was when the idea came to him. That was when the battle lines were finally drawn.

(Gopal had always had the romantic spectator’s tendency to dramatize.)

That was when the Pasteur School of Reason was conceived in Balaram’s mind.

People were always surprised to discover that Balaram had a genuine flair for organization.

The Rationalists, for instance, even Dantu, were no less than amazed at the energy, determination and capacity for attention to detail he showed once he set to work in earnest after being elected president. Many of them were frankly admiring. That alone was a considerable achievement, for it was quite a different matter when Balaram first put his idea to them soon after his election. They were quite horrified then.

After the first shocked silence someone had managed to croak hoarsely: A campaign against dirty underwear? Balaram nodded cheerfully while dubious glances perforated the silence. The gloom deepened, for no one knew what to say. It had come as a shock: dirty underwear was tough meat after a diet of salutations to the Cosmic Boson and exposés of mythologized fireworks.

But, Balaram, do we know, is there any concrete evidence to suggest, that Pasteur felt as strongly about dirty underwear as you seem to think?

Balaram had an answer ready: No, there’s no direct evidence, really; but, as you know, biographers often skip over great men’s opinions on these somewhat … unconventional … subjects. But I don’t think there can be much doubt that he felt strongly on the subject. We know, for example, that whenever Pasteur sat down to eat he would first pick up his plate and his glasses and examine them minutely, and then he’d carefully wipe them clean of germs with his handkerchief. He’d do that wherever he happened to be, no matter whether his host was a king or a dish-washer. Petty social conventions never worried Pasteur. If he felt so strongly about crockery, we don’t have to think very hard to imagine his views on underwear.

But most of the members of the society were far from convinced. There was a plaintive cry from the back of the room: Why does it have to be a campaign against underwear? Can’t we think of something else? Couldn’t we start a campaign to teach people the principles of hygiene or something like that instead?

To everyone’s surprise that aroused the usually mild-mannered Balaram actually to pound his fist on his palm. Don’t you see? he cried in appeal. That’s the whole point. The Principles of Hygiene are exactly the same thing as the Cosmic Boson or the last pterodactyl. They’re all like interesting books which you can thumb through and put back on your shelf without once feeling a need to change yourself or your own life in any way at all. That is precisely what we don’t want: we’ve had enough of that kind of thing. We want something immediate, something none of us can turn our backs on; something which holds a new picture of ourselves in front of our eyes and says: Look! This is what you must become! Maybe we can’t do very much, but at least we can make a beginning. All we want to do is make people think. And what better place to begin with than the body and its clothing? No one can turn his back on his body and his own clothes. If only we can sow the germ of a question in their minds, their own clothes and limbs will do the rest for us. They’ll become daily reminders, daily pinpricks, to shake them out of their smugness.

But, Balaram — a shame-faced cough from a new member — think of the embarrassment. How can we talk of underwear in public? What will people say?

Balaram smiled at him gently. Our embarrassment will be the first sign of our victory. If we’re embarrassed, it will be because the matter is so close to us; because talking of our underwear in public means thinking about ourselves in a new and different way. None of us was embarrassed to talk about the Cosmic Boson precisely because it meant so little to us. This is different, and for that very reason we must expect, indeed hope, to be embarrassed.