River Town Chronicles (6 page)

Lallaji's activities were an extension of the activities of earlier traders in River Town. The same road near River Town that centuries earlier provided the passageway for pilgrims and marauding armies was also the favored route for traders and merchants selling silk, taffeta, satin, gold, rock salt, Kashmiri shawls, medicines, saffron, turmeric, ginger, semi-precious stones, metals, horses, borax and timber. Gold coins that traveled along this route were converted into jewelry, still an important measure of wealth and status among merchant families. Strings of bullock carts and camels carried trade goods across the rivers in the Punjab and passed through River Town on their way east. The names of the principal merchant families of River Town became well known in Delhi and other major markets throughout northern India.

By the late 18th Century, there was also a small scale brass manufacturing industry in River Town, with less than a hundred artisans making oil lamps, religious icons and cooking utensils out of brass. The artisans at that time were mainly Hindu
kambohs,
a traditional agricultural caste that gave up harvesting crops and took up working with metals. The other major artisan group was made up of Muslim
lohars,
iron workers who traditionally made knives, iron safes, storage boxes and iron cooking pots.

The explosive growth in the manufacturing of brass utensils occurred with the Partition of India in 1947. At that time, Muslim artisans, fearing for their lives, fled River Town to resettle in the newly created Pakistan, while Sikh and Hindu metal workers fled Pakistan and resettled in River Town. Soon after, the brass industry spread like a rash for the next two decades, and by the 1960s was the most important economic activity in the town.

Brass is an alloy of zinc and copper and was thought to possess a ritual quality of “purity” in many Hindu households. Originally, the metals were piled in pits dug in the ground and heated by placing wood underneath and on top of the metals. The temperature was regulated by the blast from a large bellows. When the proper temperature was reached, the molten zinc and copper were poured into crucibles made from a mixture of clay and sand and shaped into brass ingots. The crucibles were then broken and tiny particles of metals absorbed in the clay were washed out and extracted in the form of a course powder that could be mixed in with the pure ingots of zinc and copper. There was a certain amount of alchemy to all this that allowed for skullduggery to be a part of the process. Ultimately, the ingots were heated into liquid form and poured into unbaked earthen pans in the shape of circles of various sizes. The brass circles were then heated in the workshops of the artisans and hammered, brazed and seamed together to make brass tumblers, cups, saucers, trays, pots and pans.

In the early 1900s, traditional methods for making brass utensils, like those just described, were revolutionized by a clever Muslim iron worker who fabricated several brass “re-rolling” machines that enabled useless and broken utensils to be recycled. The broken and scrap materials were melted down and then directly re-rolled into circles by machines to be made into new utensils.

Lallaji controlled the flow of scrap metals into River Town and the exodus of newly fabricated pots and pans out of town. All of this was supported by a spider's web of merchant wholesalers, retailers, brokers, commission agents and bankers. They all prospered like so many honey bees extracting nectar from the same flower. Lallajii extracted his nectar by lending money to other merchants and artisans and taking their metals as collateral for the loans. Interest rates varied according to the
izzat
(“honor”) of the borrower's family. He warehoused the metals under lock and key scattered around the inner lanes of the town.

Lallaji would patrol the lane in front of our house like a jail house warden in search of inmates planning an escape. He poked his head inside the shops of retail merchants and the workshops of the artisans, sometimes engaging in light hearted banter and sometimes scolding and threatening the occupants. The smallest details of the brass trade he kept locked away in the account book he held tightly under his arm.

T
HE VILLAGE HEADMAN
sent word that Roshan and I were invited to lunch in the village, the same village where it was claimed Akbar had built the
rang mahal.
We doubled up on the sturdy balloon tired bicycle and headed out of town again. It was always refreshing to breath the country air beyond River Town.

When we reached the village, a large crowd of men and young boys gathered around us as we approached the headman's house in the center of the village. He was sitting on his
charpoi
again, taking long drags off of his
hooka
and motioned to us to sit on chairs he brought from inside the house. Roshan and I sat on the chairs on a slightly raised platform, a sea of faces staring at us. I felt like an exotic fish suddenly trapped in a glass aquarium. They wanted to hear about America. I began with a personal introduction, telling the crowd of men and young boys about my research in River Town and about schools in the U.S. A hand shot up in the crowd. “Tell us how much money you make in America. Does everyone live in a big house and have many automobiles?” I tried to explain that this was not the case, and that there were poor people and rich people in America. But the crowd didn't seem interested in any departure from their image of America. Next, they wanted to know if it was true that married couples lived alone, with their children, away from any extended family members living in the same house. “Only unfortunate people live like that,” someone in the crowd assured me. There were whispers and snickers coming from a group of young men in the back of the crowd. Their whispers quickly spread through the crowd until someone gathered the courage to ask, “Is it true that in America you have love marriages? No arranged marriages?. No dowry?” The question started a buzz in the crowd and I noticed men nodding their heads in agreement. “Love marriages?” I puzzled out loud. “Yes. We have heard that a boy and girl go off and make love,” someone added. “Like wild animals,” came a voice from the back of the crowd. By now the crowd was unruly and talking and laughing among themselves. They looked at me as if I were mentally disturbed. What I had assumed to be self evident truths of individual choice were being challenged by another set of self evident truths and social practices diametrically opposed to my own. The headman mercifully extracted me from my predicament by announcing that it was time for his guests to eat and dismissed the unruly crowd. I was more than happy to see them leave. “You must excuse us,” the headman apologized. “We are simple villagers who do not understand the ways of America.” For the moment, I was forced to question the self evident ways of America myself.

The headman spread out banana leaves and Roshan and I sat down on the ground to eat. A young boy brought out kettles of food from inside the headman's house and began to ladle it onto our banana leaves. It amazed me how generous these villagers were with their meager possessions. It was a meal fit for Akbar himself.
Roti
(bread),
dal
(lentils),
alu muttar
(potatoes and peas), and
dahii
(yogurt) were heaped in front of us. I began to eat in my usual fashion, which is to eat one dish at a time. I began with the
dal.
No sooner had I consumed half of it than the boy rushed to replace the
dal
I had eaten with a fresh helping. I protested with hands pressed together in front of my face,
“Bus”
(enough). The boy was unmoved by what he took to be insincere protests. He smiled and stood back ready to repeat the process. I decided to move from the
dal
to the
alu muttar
and no sooner had I finished this dish than the boy piled on another helping of potatoes and peas. No amount of protest served to interrupt his swift response to any shortage of food on my banana leaf. I was feeling stuffed and wished I could get the boy to stop piling on the food. I looked over at Roshan, whose banana leaf was almost empty. I watched as he used his last piece of
roti
to skillfully scoop up the last bit of
alu mutar,
the last scoop of
dal,
and the last bit of
dahii.
He folded his hands.
“Bus”
(enough). His banana leaf was taken away and all eyes were now focused on my situation. Could it be, I wondered, that my eating habits were sending the wrong message? Did my habit of eating one dish at a time signal that I really wanted more? I was desperate to relieve myself of the potential eruption building in my stomach and wished to send the boy with the kettles away for good, so I changed my ways. I copied Roshan's habit of balancing the food on his leaf by eating a little of each item mixed together, so that each dish was eaten proportionately, leaving nothing to be replenished. It worked! In this manner I was able to finally finish my meal and have my banana leaf removed. This sent the boy with the kettles scurrying back into the house.

Roshan and I stood up and thanked the headman profusely for his hospitality and promised to return again to visit the village. We bumped along the dusty path out of the village and headed towards River Town, as I mulled over what I had taken to be the self evident truths of American culture and social practices and my own eating habits. What you see, I learned from the villagers, depends on where you're standing.

B
HABHI RACED INTO THE COURTYARD
with Brian waddling just behind her. He had just finished his early morning feast of chapattis in
bhabhi's
kitchen when Kaga made her entrance and ordered Pat to give her some water.
“Jaldi karoo”
(hurry up), she shouted, enjoying her chance to order the foreigner around. When Kaga spied
bhabhi
coming her way, she increased the volume of her voice and sprinkled it with insults.
Bhabhi
pulled on the lobes of her ears in mock disapproval of Kaga's crude remarks and then began her own harangue, hurling insults in Kaga's direction. Brian peaked around from behind
bhabhi
and began to imitate her. Kaga broke out in a toothy grin and chased Brian around the courtyard, threatening to swat him with her broom.
“Badmash”
(bad boy), she scolded, as she closed in on him and then backed off, lifted her basket on top of her head and retreated out the side door of the courtyard.

This became a daily routine. Kaga would arrive in the morning, assert her dominance over the foreigners by making demands and challenging
bhabhi
to a verbal duel, before retreating out the door with her basket of waste. We were just a side show in the daily struggle between the free spirited Kaga and the power of her earthy pollution and
bhabhi,
the high caste woman by birth with the authority granted by her higher ritual purity.

It was late in the afternoon and boredom had set in. The children were playing next door while Pat and I were sprawled out on the
charpoi.
There was a rustling sound inside the room and I thought at first it must be the children. I turned towards the sound and could barely believe my eyes. There, inside the room, was a monkey standing on his hind legs and removing my shirt from one of the pegs on the wall. He stared at me briefly, just long enough for me to get a good look at him, and then scampered out of the room. I jumped up and chased him, but he had already scaled the wall up to the roof top and stopped just above me. He looked down, staring me directly in the eyes, my shirt (my best shirt) held firmly in each hand with a sleeve stretched tightly in his mouth. He hesitated, as if waiting for something, but I didn't have the slightest clue what to do. After a few moments of sitting there motionless, staring down at me, the monkey began to tear my shirt to shreds, raining down the remnants of my shirt on top of my head. The monkey lifted his tail in my direction and slowly sauntered off in the direction of his companions intently watching the action from the roof top. This was their territory. They ruled the upper levels of River Town, while mere rats and humans occupied the ground floor. They knew the strengths and weaknesses of humans and were quick to exploit the weaknesses.