Amitav Ghosh - The Circle of Reason

We will drive money from the Ras, and without it we shall be happier, richer, more prosperous than ever before.

But this time only a few people shouted with him. There were other voices which said: How?

I think it can safely be said that there was a note of uncertainty in Alu’s voice then, as though he had only just understood what he was saying. Alu hesitated; I think he knew what he wanted to do, but not how to do it. The crowd sensed him falter. Another moment and the first bursts of laughter would have pealed out, sanity would have returned and that would have been the last anyone ever heard of Mr Alu.

But at that moment he was rescued. By whom?

By Professor Samuel, ex-accountant and clerk. He’s not really a professor of course. He was a teacher in some small-town college and, as you know, at home every teacher, whether he teaches pundits or pehlwans, is called a professor. This Samuel is an odd man, with peculiar ideas, but in his own way he is also a very clever man, a fine accountant. He had no sooner heard what Alu had to say than he delivered himself of a plan, full-grown and breathing.

First, he said, he would open files, with a page for every earning person in the Ras. Everyone would take their pay to him as soon as they received it, and the sum would be entered in the files against that man or woman’s name. The money would go into a common pool. Once a week the Professor and whoever wished to go with him would go into the Souq and buy everything that was needed in the Ras with that money. Then people could come and take whatever they needed, and the cost would be taken out of their accounts. In that way, he said, they would be able to do away with shops, and no longer would the shopkeepers drain away their savings, their sweat, and their labour in profits.

When he said that, the whole crowd rose and shouted and cheered, but the Professor stopped them. The shopkeepers of the Ras, he said, could be given a wage if they were willing to work with the others and help in buying and dividing food. They could be freed from their greed and they would be assured a livelihood. Otherwise, he said, there would be no place for them in the Ras.

Every person, he said, was to leave their address, their country, their town or village, wherever it was that they wished to send their money, and it would be entered into their pages on the files. At the end of every week, punctually, their savings would be sent back. And when the time came everybody there would see for themselves that the money they saved thus greatly exceeded anything they’d saved before.

There were many other things. I forget. Everyone was to be left a little money, whatever they needed to spend outside the Ras. But once they were in the Ras the money would have to be put away in an envelope and not touched again, until it was far outside the embankment. There would be no need for it in the Ras: they would get doctors, food, everything that was necessary, even films. No one would lack for something he needed, if he had no money today. The money would be found for him and taken out of his account later when he earned it.

Then Alu spoke again. He said that the Professor had read what was in his mind and put it in words. He asked the crowd: Are you willing to ask the Professor to work for us? To pay him a wage for his work? And in unison the crowd shouted: Yes.

That was how I lost my assistant.

Alu quietened them again. There was one other thing, he said. Every person in the Ras who wished to fight this war would also have to tie a piece of cloth above his right elbow. And whenever they left or entered a dwelling in the Ras they were to use that bit of cloth to dust the threshold, so that they left no dirt behind nor carried any with them. In this way, he said, they could know who was with them, and who against, and they could carry their fight to every doorstep.

After that there was so much noise, so much cheering, so much laughter that even Zindi flinched. Then I saw Abu Fahl rise and go up to Alu with his hands in his pockets. He pulled his hands out and emptied his pockets on to the platform. Alu tried to stop him, but the money was already there, beside him, and Abu Fahl wouldn’t touch it again. Professor Samuel was irritated, as well he might be, by this kind of impulsive foolishness. But he shouted for pencil and paper and counted the money and wrote it all down. There were others after that. First, the people from Zindi’s house: Zaghloul, a saner boy, you would have thought, had never lived; Chunni, the woman who swallows most of Professor Samuel’s earnings in exchange for I will not speculate what; thin Rakesh, and after him the whole crowd, hundreds of people, until the money on the platform had grown into a mound, and Samuel had run out of paper. By then it was all chaos, and I was grateful for the sheltered certainty of Zindi’s arm: women singing, people dancing and shouting. And in the middle of all that Hajj Fahmy’s family were busy sending out tray after tray of tea (they kept an account of course, for Professor Samuel’s files).

Then Zindi screamed, and for a moment I thought my head had rolled off my shoulders, for her arm snapped tight around my neck, which as you can see is no tree-trunk.

Far away from us, near the platform, Karthamma had risen to her feet, and in her hands was an old blue biscuit-tin.

Zindi threw herself into the crowd, shielding the baby with one arm and flailing about with the other. And while she fought she shouted, Give me back my money, you thief, you whore, and other things of that nature.

But Karthamma didn’t hesitate for a moment. She laughed, showing her brilliant white teeth, and said in her broken Hindi: It’s not your money, it has nothing to do with you. It’s the price of our sweat, our work. And, saying that, she took the lid off the tin and emptied the money on to the mound on the platform.

Zindi howled and her free arm thrashed about like a buzz-saw, but she was powerless — the crowd had imprisoned her.

Karthamma sneered at her as she struggled helplessly in the grip of a dozen men, and said: Give me back my child.

At that Zindi stopped fighting, and clutched the boy to her chest. There was laughter all around her then, though some people were quite angry. You could hear shouts: Send her out, send her out, what’s she doing here?

The fight had gone out of Zindi. Silently, hugging the boy, she let herself be pushed and elbowed out of the door. When she was beside me I saw that she was weeping. She muttered, tears streaming from her eyes: What are we going to do? He’s going to get us killed. We’re ruined, all our years of struggle wasted because of a few days of madness.

I took her arm then, and led her out, through the jeers of the crowd in the lane. And all the way back to her house she said not a single word.

Jeevanbhai stopped abruptly. His eyes rose to the ceiling and he seemed to go into a trance, swaying on his chair. Das, who had been straining forward, drinking in every word, felt himself fall, like a dropped puppet. He looked around him, startled. Jai Lal’s eyes were shut, as though he had been lulled into a doze by Jeevanbhai’s monotone. Das leant over and shook him. Without missing a breath Lal said loudly: Very interesting, Jeevanbhai, very interesting. And where is this man staying now?

Jeevanbhai fumbled around the desk for the bottle of whisky and poured himself another drink. He was clearly very tired. Propping up his head with his arm, he looked at them in turn.

He’s staying in Hajj Fahmy’s house now, he said wearily. I believe he’s weaving a lot. I’m sure Hajj Fahmy won’t lose by his hospitality. This man’s a good weaver, they say, and there’s a good market in hand-woven cloth among foreigners.

What will happen next, Patel sahb ?