Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

Shombhu Debnath had been the really important uncertainty in Balaram’s mind. The rest of his plans were clear. The School of Reason was to be open to everyone in Lalpukur — to men and women, boys and girls, people of any age at all, but the illiterate were to be given preference. The School would have two main departments. After much careful thought Balaram had decided to name one the Department of Pure Reason and the other the Department of Practical Reason: abstract reason and concrete reason, a meeting of the two great forms of human thought. Every student would have to attend classes in both departments. In the Department of Pure Reason they would be taught elementary reading, writing and arithmetic, and they would be given lectures in the history of science and technology. Balaram was to be the head and probably the only teacher in that department. In the Department of Practical Reason, the students would be taught weaving or tailoring (but that again was uncertain, for it depended on Toru-debi’s assent). Alu and Maya were to teach Elementary Weaving — the techniques of starching, winding, warping and basic coarse weaving — while Shombhu Debnath would teach Advanced Weaving. Shombhu Debnath would be the head of the Department of Practical Reason, but Toru-debi, if she agreed, would head her own section. Balaram would be headmaster of the school or, as he preferred to put it, the Fount of Reason.

Every student would have to enrol for two years. It would be assumed that the students would carry on working on the land, or doing whatever they usually did for a living, while they were studying at the school, so the classes would be held in the late afternoon and early evening. Night classes were a possibility to be thought of later.

But a question nagged Balaram: ought the school to charge a fee? He disliked the idea. Fees will never cover our costs, he said, and they might keep some people away.

Shombhu Debnath scratched his head. It’s not the money that’s important, he said. It’s something else. If you don’t charge fees, no one will come, you’ll see, and people will laugh. People never take anything seriously unless they have to pay for it. It’s like those missionaries’ Bibles, given away by the truckload and only good for firewood.

So they decided to charge a fee of four rupees a month; not enough to deter anyone, nor too little to be considered a serious investment.

But mainly the school would finance itself by selling the cloth produced by students during class and by taking orders for tailoring. And here there was a job for Rakhal, too. If he agreed, he could be the school’s Sales Manager, in charge of the business of selling the school’s cloth in Naboganj. Balaram was a little worried about a possible charge of nepotism for hiring every member of Shombhu Debnath’s family; but, on the other hand, as he explained conscientiously, Rakhal was perfectly suited to the job — there were few people in Lalpukur who had his expert knowledge of Naboganj and its markets, and he had already proved his worth in marketing Alu’s cloth.

The money earned by selling cloth and by tailoring would be used to buy yarn and dyes and possibly more looms (more work for Rakhal), and for the teachers’ salaries. Balaram was adamant that everyone who taught or worked in the school would be paid a proper wage. This is not charity after all, he said. We want everyone to work hard, and no one works too hard for a charity.

If there was any money left over after paying salaries and buying fresh yarn and so on, it could be distributed equally among the students. But Balaram was willing to recognize, realistically, that that was an unlikely prospect for some time.

As for the site, that was a problem already solved. There was plenty of space outside Balaram’s house for a bamboo-and-thatch shed to house the weaving section. A couple of looms could easily be installed there. Toru-debi, if she agreed to teach, would probably prefer to take her classes in a room inside the house. And there were plenty of other rooms, and the courtyard besides, for Balaram to teach in.

They would need some money to start with, of course, but Balaram had solved that problem, too. He had a little money put away in the bank, enough to get the school going. It would be only a loan, of course, and the school could pay him back once it was on its feet.

So it’s all very simple, you see, Balaram said, looking straight into Shombhu Debnath’s eyes. Simple and beautiful: knowledge coupled with labour — and that, too, labour of a kind which represents the highest achievement of practical reason. Our school will be the perfect embodiment, the essence of Reason. And so, naturally, it can only be named after the greatest of all the soldiers of Reason — Louis Pasteur.

Shombhu Debnath smiled and looked away. But that’s not all, he said, is it? There’s something else on your mind, too, isn’t there, something you haven’t told me? I haven’t heard you say anything about that carbolic stuff you’re so fond of. Where does that fit in?

Balaram started guiltily. This is enough, he said, for the moment. One has to think of a beginning before one can think of an end.

With his first major hurdle crossed Balaram went ahead with redoubled energy. He had always been fairly sure that he could count on Alu and Maya, and he was proved right. They agreed willingly. Even Rakhal jumped at his offer. Balaram did not know it, but Rakhal was passing through a period of bewilderment and anxiety then. His income from his bombs had dried up because the market for home-made bombs in Naboganj had suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed. Some of his regular customers turned him away saying that there had been a shift in the political climate. His friends whispered that the big producers had stepped in to drive the small fry out, and there was a rumour that the stockpiles from the war had suddenly been released on the market. Rakhal neither knew nor cared. His newly acquired skill had given him endless pleasure, and suddenly it was useless. And, as though that were not enough, the kung fu class, so long the centre of his life, had shut its doors on him. He had twice absent-mindedly beaten the teacher (who had advertised a few more skills than he actually possessed) into a dead faint. Nobody else would fight him. He was too forgetful, they said; he could never remember that it was just practice. The only consolation left to Rakhal was an occasional kung fu film at a morning show in Naboganj, and even those he would not have been able to afford if it were not for his percentage of the money he made from selling Alu’s cloth (which was not so much after all). Balaram’s offer came when Rakhal was steadying himself to face a choice between giving up cigarettes or films — or, worse, asking Alu for a loan. When Balaram told him about the job, he could hardly believe his luck.

Balaram was still left with the problem of persuading Toru-debi to teach in the school. Twice he began to explain to her, but both times his courage failed him and he ended in stammering confusion. To his enormous surprise, when he did finally ask her, she was not merely willing, but enthusiastic. No sooner had she heard him out than she bustled off to her room to find her old cut-out models and plan her first lessons.

The school could not have had a better beginning. After that it was just a question of building a shed outside Balaram’s front door and installing Shombhu Debnath’s looms there, and of buying a few slates and some lead, possibly a few blackboards as well, and stocking up on a fair quantity of yarn.

Balaram delegated the building of the shed to Shombhu Debnath, Rakhal and Alu. Of course, said Shombhu Debnath. I’ll take charge. But once they started work he spent most of his time squatting on his heels and throwing sidelong glances down the red-dust path which ran past Balaram’s house while Rakhal and Alu planned and built the shed. It was a very simple structure — long and rectangular with chhanch walls, flimsy squares of plaited bamboo shavings, held up by bamboo posts driven into the earth at two-foot intervals. They cut the posts from the thickets behind Balaram’s house. Only the plaited shavings and thatch for the roof had to be bought, and that was a matter of a couple of hundred rupees.