Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

Till about a month before he found himself in Mariamma Rakesh was a travelling salesman for a small Ayurvedic pharmacy in Bhopal which specialized in a patented herbal laxative. It was the only job he had been able to find — despite his bachelor’s degree in commerce — and that, too, only after a year’s efforts. So he worked at it hard, though it was tedious and very frustrating.

The trouble really lay in the product. It was soon clear that people no longer wanted Ayurvedic laxatives. There was no market for black viscous liquids in old rum-bottles; they wanted sparkling, bubbling salts which dissolved in water, or milky syrups in bottles with bright labels. They wanted advertisements and slogans which promised more than mere movement — promotions and success at work, marital triumphs, and refrigerators in their dowries. Regularity, balance and inner peace no longer sold.

After he had been working there for close on six months there came a particularly heart-breaking day in a small town south of Bhopal: not one of the town’s four pharmacies agreed to stock so much as half a bottle of his wares. He had nothing else to do, so he wandered down the narrow bazaar, kicking at the grimy dust, towards the ghats on the river. And then, passing the opening of a narrow lane, he heard the unmistakable throbbing of Mere Sapnon ki Rani spilling out.

For a while he stood there transfixed, overwhelmed by reminiscence. The song was from the first film he had ever seen — he and a cousin had stolen out of his aunt’s house in Indore, where his mother had taken him to visit her sister. Despite the thrashing afterwards, the magic of that burning July afternoon had stayed mirror-clear in his memory; even years later when he was seeing three or four films a week.

There was nothing he could do about it: the song led him in as though it were a rope around his wrists.

He found himself in a sweetshop, a large hive of a room, all brightly tiled and calendared. A young man in a striped shirt sat, legs folded, behind a steel box, taking in money. Rakesh could tell at once that the shirt was of the finest terry cotton; he noted the gold chain that hung around his neck; envied the easy-going stylishness of his curling, oiled sidelocks. On the wall behind the young man, just beneath a small earthen figure of the Devi Lakshmi, hung a gigantic, pulsating cassette recorder.

Rakesh ate two gulab-jamuns and three samosas. When he went up to the counter to pay, the young man expertly shot back his cuffs and pressed a series of minuscule knobs on his watch with the tip of a pencil. An answer flashed on to the dial. One rupee forty-five, he said.

It took Rakesh an age to pay. Then he could no longer contain himself. Boss, he burst out, how? How did you do it? How did you get all this, boss?

In al-Ghazira, boss, said the young man. Two years and the grace of Lakshmi Devi … He pressed another knob and the watch shrilled out a tune.

Later, after an hour of questions, Rakesh walked down to the ghats and, unmindful of fish and pilgrims alike, threw his bottles of laxative into the Narmada. Within a month, his share of his father’s land sold to a brother, savings collected, Rakesh was in Mahé …

The Professor yawned and blew his nose into the sea. What Rakesh had to say bored him — he had so many untold stories of his own left to tell — but he would never have said so. It was the first time he had heard Rakesh say anything more than a few words and he had said it with so much earnestness that it had seemed as though an interruption would wound him into ages of silence. So he nodded politely and said: And then …?

Rakesh shook his head and shrugged: That’s all. The Professor’s eyes lit up: he saw his chance and quickly cleared his throat. But before he could begin the sea had robbed him of his moment. A sleek black hump curled through the water right in front of them and was lost again before they could be sure they had seen anything at all. And then five, ten, twenty finned backs appeared all at once, weaving through the water with such fluency that they could hardly be told apart from the waves. One leapt out of the water, a grinning bottle-nosed dolphin, and with a single blow of its flukes sent a wave splashing over Mariamma ’s deck. Then the huge smiling creatures were all around them, riding Mariamma ’s bow wave, nudging each other out in turn while the others leapt and rolled nearby, flashing their white undersides. They all rushed to the side and laughed and shouted till Mariamma yawed and rolled and Hajji Musa had to call out to them not to crowd to one side. Then suddenly, as if to a signal, the sea emptied again and Professor Samuel was left brimful of untold stories and no audience.

But later that night he had his chance again.

An hour or so after their evening meal the Professor heard the quick patter of footsteps near the cabin. He was just in time to see Chunni lean out over the side and empty her stomach into the sea. After a minute-long bout of retching she leant back against the cabin and covered her face with her hands. Slowly, with growing dismay, he realized that she was sobbing.

Yes, Miss Chunni? he said, standing well back from her. Is there anything I can do? Any help …?

How much longer, she whispered, her face still covered with her hands, how much longer will this go on? Are we ever going to get there? Where is he taking us?

Then her chest heaved spasmodically and she had to rush to the rails and lean out again.

Water, water, Professor Samuel muttered to himself. I’ll get some water.

By the time he was back she had collapsed on to the deck with her head on her knees. Here, he said, thrusting the jerrycan at her. Here’s some nice, clean, fresh water.

She made no move. He tapped her uncertainly on the shoulder. Miss Chunni …

He heard her choke back a sob. You need water, Miss Chunni, he said softly. That’s all. He poured a little into his hand and splashed it gently on her face.

She took the jerrycan from him then and washed her face and sat down again beside him, shivering and hiccuping. Koi baat nahin , he said. It’s all right now. And soon he was talking to her in a gentle, quiet monotone, soothing her with the theory of queues.

Much later, long after he had told her about his researches and his tabulations and all his newly minted formulae — the formulae that were to solve the queuing problems of every busy bus-stand and ration-shop and sari-bazaar and obstetrician’s clinic (especially the last; for, make no mistake, there’s no queue longer than that which winds theoretically away from every obstetrician’s door — an unending line stretching into dim infinity, of Teeming Millions waiting to be born) in all of Tellicherry and Cannanore — he looked down at Chunni and saw that she was asleep.

Miss Chunni, he whispered sadly, you’ve been …?

No, she whispered back, I’m listening. Go on.

And do you know, Miss Chunni, he said, none of them would have anything to do with me? I took them plans which would have revolutionized their entire selling strategy, and they wouldn’t even listen to me long enough to laugh. When I took my brand-new counter design to the Dreamland Saree Centre they threw me and the blueprint …

He looked down at her again and this time there could be no doubt that she was soundly asleep. For a long minute he looked into her dark, pitted face and then with the languor of a sleepwalker he raised a finger and touched her on the lips. The sensation went through him like a shock. He snatched his hand back, leapt to his feet and wandered confusedly back to the tarpaulin shelter near the stern.

When they awoke next morning an oil-tanker lay before them. It was so vast it seemed to straddle half the horizon. Mariamma passed so close to it they could see clearly the cross-hatching of pipes and turrets on its deck. It seemed to take an age before they had sailed its length. Its wake was like a gorge swinging through the sea, and when it struck Mariamma the boat almost stood on its stern. They saw a couple of other tankers that day and a few smaller ships, too, mainly freighters and ancient tramps wheezing columns of smoke. In the evening Chunni, sitting with Professor Samuel in the stern, saw birds and pointed them out. When the Professor told Hajji Musa about them the Hajji nodded. Yes, he said, it’s the ninth day. We’ll be in al-Ghazira soon. To celebrate they cooked the one fish that had somehow entangled its gills in Alu’s line.