The Day of the Scorpion (37 page)

‘In England, you say, there was little difference between you and the average English boy who was being trained for a career out here. Why, then, were you so shocked by what you found? The average Englishman arriving in India isn’t shocked at all. In fact, he’s rather excited. How do you explain this difference?’

She saw Gopal look at Rowan, as if astounded that he should bother to ask such a question. She too wondered why
he had. If Kumar’s face had been capable of changing expression she imagined it would now reflect an astonishment the equal of Gopal’s. Perhaps the time he took to reply reflected it. Eventually he said:

‘The India I came to wasn’t the one the Englishman comes to. Our paths began to diverge in the region of the Suez Canal. In the Red Sea my skin turned brown. In Bombay my white friends noticed it. In Mayapore I had no white friends because I had become invisible to them.’

‘Invisible?’

‘Invisible.’

Rowan looked down at his file.

‘I see that your father died in Scotland early in 1938 and that you came out in May of that year and went to live with your father’s sister, Mrs Shalini Gupta Sen, in Mayapore. Was she your only surviving relative?’

‘She was the only relative my father kept in touch with.’

‘Why?’

‘He had personally supervised her education when she was a young girl. The Kumar women were all illiterate but he taught her to read and write English, and speak it. They remained very fond of each other. When she was about fifteen she was married to a man of more than thirty – Prakash Gupta Sen of Mayapore. He died before they had any children. She was always interested in her English nephew – which was the way she referred to me in letters to my father.’

‘Your father’s solicitors communicated with her and she agreed that you should live with her?’

‘Yes. She borrowed the passage money from her brother-in-law.’

‘The contractor, Romesh Chand Gupta Sen of Mayapore, whose office you worked in for a time?’

‘For a time.’

‘Was there no possible means of maintaining you in England to finish at your public school and then study for the ICS examinations as your father had wished?’

‘The means perhaps, but they weren’t offered. My father committed suicide. He’d had business failures. He tried to recoup but lost everything. That’s why he killed himself. His English-style son existed only as long as the money lasted.
He probably couldn’t face telling me my English life had ended and my Indian life was beginning several years too soon.’

‘Did you ever ask your relatives in Mayapore if they’d maintain you in England until you’d qualified?’

The solicitor wrote to my Aunt Shalini, suggesting that.’

‘I presume you had some friends in England whom you could have lived with?’

‘It seemed like it – for a time.’

‘The family of one of your friends at school perhaps?’

‘Yes.’

Again the rustle of paper.

‘In one of the reports on this file there’s a reference to a letter which the police found in your room and took charge of. It was signed Colin and had a Berkshire address. Was Colin the boy whose family might have looked after you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But your aunt was unable to raise the money to keep you in England, until you’d qualified?’

‘She had no money of her own. She was a childless widow whose husband died in debt to his brother. She depended on this brother of his for practically every penny.’

‘We’re speaking of Romesh Chand Gupta Sen, I take it?’

‘Yes. He offered passage money, and offered her an allowance for taking me in. The solicitor said it was very generous. According to him I was probably only losing my last term at school. He said I could study for the ICS in India.’

‘You still intended to enter the ICS then? You came out with that ambition unimpaired?’

‘Yes.’

‘You discussed it with your aunt, and her brother-in-law?’

‘Yes. But it was made plain by Mr Gupta Sen that there was no money for any kind of further education. I was expected to start earning my living.’

‘Which is when you started working in your uncle’s warehouse?’

‘Yes. In the office of his Chillianwallah Bazaar warehouse. I remember the leper.’

‘The leper?’

‘He stood at the gate of the bazaar.’

‘Why do you remember this?’

‘When I saw the leper I thought of my grandfather. I wondered whether he had become a leper too.’

‘And it was during this period that you had Hindustani lessons from Pandit Baba?’

‘Yes.’

‘It must all have seemed very strange to you.’

‘Very strange. Yes.’

‘The next note on your file is that during the summer of 1939 you applied to be taken on as a trainee at the British–Indian Electrical factory. A trainee in what?’

‘They had a scheme for training suitable young Indians for junior executive positions.’

‘You failed to get taken on, I see. In fact the note says: “The applicant was turned down chiefly as a result of his sullen and unco-operative manner.” Would that be a reasonable description of your attitude?’

‘It would depend on who was describing it.’

‘I infer from the note that the man who found you sullen and unco-operative was the manager in charge of technical training. An Englishman. What happened?’

‘I’d already passed two interviews, with one of the directors and with the managing director. The interview with the technical training manager was supposed to be a formality but he insisted on asking me technical questions which I told him at the outset I wouldn’t be able to answer. When he’d finished he insulted me.’

‘How?’

‘By suggesting that I was an ignorant savage.’

‘Are those the words he used?’

‘No. He said: Where are you from, laddie? Straight down off the tree?’

‘What did you say to that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And so the interview ended—’

‘Not then. He said something else.’

‘Well?’

‘He said he didn’t like bolshie black laddies on his side of the business.’

‘How did you respond?’

‘I got up and walked out.’

‘Yes, I see.’ Rowan turned a page of the file. ‘The next note shows you as having taken employment as a sub-editor and reporter on an Indian-owned newspaper published locally in Mayapore in the English language. The
Mayapore Gazette
. I presume this went well because you were still employed there at the date of your arrest in 1942, some three years later. What led you to choose journalism as a profession?’

‘I didn’t think of it as journalism or of myself as a journalist. A few months living in Mayapore showed me I’d only one qualification to put to practical use. My native language. English. The
Gazette
was owned, edited and written entirely by Indians. The English it was printed in was often very funny. So far as I was concerned I worked on the
Gazette
as a corrector. I became an occasional reporter because I could earn four annas a line for anything I wrote which they published. In addition to my salary of sixty rupees a month.’

‘Did your aunt and uncle-by-marriage approve of this job?’

‘My aunt did. She used to buy the
Gazette
for me so that I could read about local affairs. She liked reading it too. She liked being able to talk English again. She was always very good to me. She did her best to make me comfortable and happy. It wasn’t her fault that I was neither.’

‘Your aunt approved but her brother-in-law didn’t?’

‘When I got the job at the
Gazette
he reduced my aunt’s allowance.’

‘Why?’

‘He said I could contribute to my upkeep out of my salary. He gave me nothing when I worked in his office.’

‘I now go back,’ Rowan said, ‘to the first group of names, which consists of two: Pandit Baba and S. V. Vidyasagar. It was in the
Mayapore Gazette
office that you met the second man, Vidyasagar?’

‘Yes. It was Vidyasagar who showed me the ropes.’

‘What kind of ropes?’

‘Finding my way round the Civil lines. Where the District and Sessions court was, who the deputy commissioner was and where he lived. Which was police headquarters. Who to apply to for permission to attend and report on some social
function on the
maidan
. Before I joined the
Gazette
there’d been no occasion for me to cross the river and enter the Civil lines and cantonment.’

‘Your job on the
Gazette
, then, took you into what from your point of view were more pleasant surroundings, a happier environment altogether?’

‘It was interesting to observe that environment.’

‘You felt yourself no more than observer?’

‘I was no more than an observer. Perhaps I was even less than that. But it was interesting. Observing all the things English people did to prove themselves they were still English. Interesting and instructive. It taught me to see the ridiculous side of my father’s ambition. I realized he’d left an important factor out of his calculations about my future.’

‘And what was that?’

‘The fact that in India the English stop being unconsciously English and become consciously English. I had been unconsciously English too. But in India I could never become consciously English; only consciously Indian. Conscious of being something I’d no idea how to be.’

Again Rowan looked down and referred to his file.

‘Vidyasagar is also described as a sub-editor on another Mayapore newspaper, the
Mayapore Hindu
. How long were you working together at the
Gazette
?’

‘About three weeks.’

‘Vidyasagar then left and joined the
Mayapore Hindu
?’

‘He was sacked.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘When the editor of the
Gazette
took me on he did so with the intention of sacking Vidyasagar.’

‘Did you know that?’

‘No. But Vidyasagar did.’

Rowan hesitated. ‘So there was cause there for some friction between you and Vidyasagar? Did he harbour any kind of grudge?’

‘If he ever did he never showed it. When he was sacked he said he’d expected it and that it wasn’t to worry me because he could easily get a job on the
Mayapore Hindu
. He always remained friendly.’

‘Why did the editor of the
Mayapore Gazette
prefer you to Vidyasagar?’

‘I wrote correct English. Vidyasagar had only been at the Government Higher School.’

‘The editorial policy of the
Gazette
has always been pro-British, wouldn’t you say? I mean in comparison with the
Mayapore Hindu
where Vidyasagar was subsequently employed. A note here mentions that the
Mayapore Hindu
had a history of closure by the civil authorities. In fact it was closed down for a time during the riots in August 1942. The
Mayapore Gazette
on the other hand has never been proscribed.’

‘The
Gazette
’s policy was to print nothing that caused the authorities any misgivings. I don’t know if that amounts to pro-Britishness.’

‘I ask the question to find out if you think there’d be anything to be said for a view that as a young reporter and sub-editor your attitude to affairs in general was more in keeping with the paper’s editorial policy than was the attitude of Vidyasagar, for example.’

‘I had no comparable attitude. Vidyasagar was an ardent nationalist, like ninety-nine per cent of other young Indians of his age and class and education.’

‘That’s what I mean. The editor of the
Gazette
might have found such a young man an embarrassment. With you he felt on safer ground?’

‘The editor never asked me if I had any political views or affiliations. He hired me because of my ability to transcribe copy into correct English.’

‘Did you have any political views and affiliations when you joined the paper?’

‘No.’

‘I believe a great deal of the
Gazette
was taken up with reports of social and sporting functions organized by the English community in Mayapore.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you sometimes attended such functions in your capacity as a reporter?’

‘In that capacity, yes.’

‘You would be a more suitable representative of the
Gazette
at such a function than Vidyasagar – ? I mean from the editor’s point of view.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And from the point of view of the people attending the function?’

‘From their point of view I would be no different from Vidyasagar.’

‘Why?’

‘We both had black faces.’

A pause.

‘But as time went by you were able better than Vidyasagar to break down this rather artificial barrier. You got to know a few English people.’

‘I got to know one.’

‘You’re referring to Miss Manners?’

‘Yes.’

‘During your interrogation, whenever you were asked to describe the circumstances in which you became acquainted with Miss Manners you always replied: I have nothing to say. The question was simple enough, surely?’

‘It was also unnecessary. The person asking it knew those circumstances as well as I did.’

‘This board does not. So I ask the same question. What were the circumstances in which you got to know Miss Manners?’

‘I was invited to the house where she was staying.’

‘Can you remember the date?’

‘Either the end of February or the beginning of March, nineteen-forty-two.’

‘I see. Then that would have been soon after an occasion in February 1942 when you were taken to the police station at the Mandir Gate bridge and asked questions about your identity and occupation?’

‘The invitation was a consequence of that.’

‘You mean you were invited to the house where Miss Manners was staying because you’d been questioned by the police?’

‘My being questioned by the police made certain people in Mayapore aware of my existence, yes.’

‘Please elucidate.’

‘I was arrested in a place called The Sanctuary—’

‘Arrested?’

‘I was dragged into a police truck, taken to the police station, held, questioned and then released. It seemed to me like being arrested.’

‘Very well. Continue—’

‘The Sanctuary was run as a private charity for the sick and dying by a woman known as Sister Ludmila. After I was arrested – taken away – she got word to Romesh Chand Gupta Sen. He sent for his lawyer, a man called Srinivasan. Srinivasan was a friend of Lady Chatterjee who lived in the MacGregor House. Miss Manners was staying with her there. Sister Ludmila also mentioned my arrest to a German woman who was in charge of the Purdah Hospital. Doctor Klaus. Doctor Klaus was also a friend of Lady Chatterjee. By the time Mr Srinivasan got to the police station to ask why I had been taken there I’d been released. But Lady Chatterjee heard of the incident from Dr Klaus and asked Mr Srinivasan about me. So she became interested in my case.’