Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

I would never dare to call Uncle a turncoat or a hypocrite, but my, how things may change in only a few years! Yet who am I to pretend to understand the mysterious workings of Uncle’s mind? It would be foolish for one such as Hridayram to even try. I must simply regard this as another perplexing example of Uncle’s mysterious lila —the most fascinating and beguiling and magical divine play of my strange and singular Uncle Gadadhar.

August 1884, late at night in Sri Ramakrishna’s room at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple

The boy was lying on a mat on the northeastern verandah of the Master’s room, struggling to fall asleep. Sri Ramakrishna himself rarely ever slept more than a couple of hours a night. The rest of the time he would pace around restlessly, or climb up onto the roof, muttering to himself, chanting God’s names, singing, or clapping his hands, or talking emphatically with an invisible someone, always moving, always walking, frantically walking, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Was this devotion or madness? Joy or distraction?

The boy was exhausted after a full and inspirational day of spiritual teaching, prayer, and song. He was only young and not wise in the ways of the world, but it seemed to him that after dark, once all the crowds had finally dispersed, the Master would become mysteriously transformed, everything comforting and familiar about him — everything he thought he knew and understood — quite magically dematerializing. His mother had warned him: “What?! You went to visit that crazy Brahmin ? Are you mad?! Don’t you know what they say about him — that he has destroyed the minds of three hundred and fifty young men?!”

The boy frowned at the memory. He rolled gently onto his side — into the fetal position, his arms crossed against his chest — feeling hungry and perplexed. Minutes passed. He yawned and lowered his knees a little, then suddenly, without warning, the Master came barreling outside onto the balcony and commenced pacing — like a thing possessed — around and around the mat where he lay. He could hear the Master’s bare feet slapping against the polished concrete floor, his voice whispering and wheedling, hoarse and cajoling. He could see, through his lashes, the Master’s hands frantically wringing. “ Mother! Mother! Mother! Mother! ”

The boy froze and held his breath. Could this be it? Finally? Was this it? The thing he’d heard so much about? The thing that he’d been waiting for? The thing that he’d been dreaming of?

He scrunched his eyes shut, terrified.

Was this it? At long last? Was this to be the night that he was blessed?

Forty years earlier

Ah, the things the Rani has seen! The things the Rani has done! She has been attacked by thugs on stilts in the bug-infested swamps of the Sunderbans, she has resurfaced the road to Puri for faithful pilgrims to walk upon, she has donated generously to the imperial library, she has constructed bathing ghat s for the needy and dug ponds for the parched, she has opened a home for the dying in Nimtala, she has been a powerful patron of wrestlers and weight lifters, she has bought the fishing rights for a segment of the Ganga from the British government and then blocked it, with chains, because the big ships were— ahem —“frightening the little fish,” she has been hilariously and outrageously and adorably litigious. But most important of all, she has built a giant temple on the banks of the Ganga, at Dakshineswar, after the terrible Goddess Kali appeared to her in a dream and told her that she must. It’s a long story. But before we get around to that …

Chained up the great and holy Ganga?!

(Although some still doggedly maintain that she actually blocked the sacred river with thousands of bamboo canes.)

Two stories of the Rani’s legendary verve, cunning, and spunk neatly intertwine here — like a couple of temple cats, one black, one white (let’s call them Yin and Yang), winding their way around the legs of the temple cook. The first involves an English gentleman neighbor of the Rani who complained to the authorities after she hired a group of musicians to process — with her family priests — early in the morning to the sacred Ganga, to perform a ritual there in anticipation of the great Durga festival (or puja ). She was cautioned by the authorities and promptly responded by hiring twice as many musicians to process (joyously! cacophonously!) the following day. At dawn. Obviously. The furious neighbor sued and the Rani was fined. The Rani — who was intensely law-abiding — paid her fine, but was incensed that the government (the heathens!) had acted against a religious observance during one of the most important holy celebrations of the Hindu spiritual calendar.

Revenge, as we shall soon discover, is an intemperate dish generally best accompanied by a mouthwatering selection of chutneys, pickles, and a cooling raita . The Rani promptly put up barricades at either end of Babu Road from Janbazar to Babu Ghat. No traffic could pass through. The authorities complained, but the Rani calmly informed them, by letter, that she owned the road and could therefore do with it exactly as she pleased. And she did. The road remained shut, the people rioted (in support of the Rani; a series of ecstatic songs and limericks were penned in her honor) until she was grudgingly reimbursed the value of her fine. Then she opened Babu Road again, without a murmur.

But these high jinks were merely a small prelude — a brief warm-up — a colorful aside. The Rani’s main symphony had yet to be played. Sometime later the government (this tune’s composer) imposed a crippling fishing tax on the impoverished fishermen of the holy Ganga. The fishermen appealed to numerous individuals in positions of power to come to their aid (they needed a conductor), but nobody would take up their proffered baton, not, at least, until they approached the dear Rani. The Rani picked up their baton readily, but she handled it furtively and proceeded with great stealth — no officious tapping on the music stand here to draw attention to herself! Instead she quietly took up the lease of the fishing rights on the great river between Ghusuri and Metiabruz, then told all the fishermen in that area to barricade the river and fish to their hearts’ content, tax free. This they did, and gladly. All commercial shipping was promptly brought to a standstill.

Just imagine the scene: the terrible honking and parping of indignant sea captains, a tangled chaos of boats and ships and tugs bobbing about, either end, unable to reach their ports or drop off their cargos.

The government summonsed the Rani, demanding that she remove her barricades posthaste . The Rani replied (let’s imagine a swishing of sari s, a jangling of bangles) that the giant steamboats had been disturbing her fish, making them dash about and rendering them incapable of laying any eggs, which meant, in due course, that the poor fishermen had been struggling to net any kind of livable catch.

Once again, the government was obliged to concede (dammit!) that the Rani had the law on her side. They refunded her the money for her lease and rescinded the loathed tax.

Job done!

Ah, the Rani. Is it any wonder that they composed songs about her, renamed Babu Road after her, built an imposing statue of her, put her lovely face on a stamp?

What happens when Sri Ramakrishna quietly asks you to open your mouth, circa 1883?

You spit out your tongue—

He’ll scratch a mantram on it

In ancient Sanskrit

And just by the by …

Remember those dreadful thugs? In the swampy Sunderbans, raising merry hell on their pesky stilts? During the course of the mugging (shots were fired, a thief was wounded) the Rani discovered that this terrible, legendary, and much-feared band of brigands had only resorted to their vicious trade because of an awful paucity of legitimate local work options. The land in question (it transpires) was part of the vast property handed over to the Rani by Prince Dwarakanath Tagore (remember?) to settle his outstanding debt. So the Rani promptly sat down and brainstormed with the thieves, thrashed out a few ideas, drew up a business plan, reached deep into her coffers, and helped them to establish a series of incredibly successful fisheries which utterly transformed the local economy — and the impoverished local community — for ever and ever and ever, Amen.