by Amitav Ghosh
In the distance, at a street corner there was a long line of men. As the Packard rolled past, they saw that the men were queueing to have tattoo-like designs painted on their chests. Dolly’s reaction was instantaneous. She leant over to shake U Ba Kyaw’s shoulder.
‘Dolly—what’s the matter? What’s happening?’
‘We have to turn round. We have to go back—back to the house.’
‘Because of those men? Why? Does it have something to do with those tattoos?’
‘Those weren’t tattoos, Uma. Those designs were for soldiers who’re going to war . . .’ Dolly began to drum her fist distractedly on her knees. ‘I think there’s going to be some kind of trouble. We have to find out where the boys are— where Rajkumar is. If we’re quick maybe we’ll be able to stop them leaving the house.’
Some twenty yards ahead of the Packard, a man leapt off a footpath and ran into the street. Uma and Dolly noticed him when he appeared in one corner of the Packard’s wide, curved windscreen. He was an Indian, a rickshaw-puller, dressed in a tattered vest and a longyi. He was running hard and beads of sweat were flying off his arms. One of his hands was clawing the air, and the other was holding up his longyi, keeping it from getting entangled in his legs. His face was dark and his eyes very white and bulbous. Two steps carried him from the edge of their windscreen to its middle; he turned to glance over his shoulder and his eyes started in his head. Now they saw that he was being closely pursued by a man who was just two steps behind him. This man was bare-bodied and a black design was painted over his chest. He was carrying something but they couldn’t see what it was, because it was hidden beneath the edge of their windscreen. Then, all of a sudden, the pursuer swung his shoulders and drew his arms back, in the manner of a tennis player preparing to make a stroke. They saw now that the instrument in his hands was a da, a long, glinting blade with a short handle, part sword, part axe. They sat transfixed in their seats as the da scythed through the air in a circular motion. The rickshaw-puller had almost reached the far end of their windscreen when suddenly his head toppled over like a lopped-off branch, hanging down over his spine, held on by a thin flap of skin. But the body did not fall instantly to the ground: for a fraction of a second the decapitated trunk stayed upright. They saw it advance by one more step before crashing to the pavement.
Uma’s first impulse was to reach for the door handle. ‘What are you doing?’ Dolly screamed. ‘Stop.’
‘We have to help, Dolly. We can’t just leave him on the street . . .’
‘Uma, have you gone mad?’ Dolly hissed. ‘If you get out of the car now, you’ll be killed too.’ She gave Uma a push, thrusting her on to the floor of the car. ‘You have to hide, Uma. We can’t run the risk of your being seen.’ She made Uma lie flat and then ripped the cloth covers off the Packard’s back seat. ‘I’m going to cover you with these. Lie still and don’t say a word.’
Uma put her head down on the floor-mat and closed her eyes. The rickshaw-puller’s face appeared in front of her: she saw his head once again, toppling backwards. In that instant when the decapitated body had still been upright, still moving forward, she had caught a glimpse of those white eyes, hanging down over his spine: their gaze had appeared to be directed into the car, right at her. Uma felt her gorge rise and then vomit came pouring of her mouth and her nose, fouling the floor-mat.
‘Dolly.’ Just as she was beginning to raise her head, Dolly gave her a sharp nudge. The car came to a sudden stop and she froze, with her face inches from the vomit-covered mat. Somewhere above Dolly was talking to someone—a group of men—she was explaining something in Burmese. The conversation took just a minute or two, but an eternity seemed to pass before the car moved on again.
The riots lasted several days and the casualties numbered in the hundreds. The toll would have been higher still, if it had not been for the many Burmese who had rescued Indians from the mob and sheltered them in their homes. It was discovered later that the trouble had started with a clash between Indian and Burmese workers at the docks. Many Indian- and Chinese-owned businesses were attacked, among them one of Rajkumar’s timberyards. Three of his workers were killed and dozens were injured.
Rajkumar was at home when the trouble broke out. Neither he nor anyone else in the family suffered any personal injury. Neel happened to be safely out of town when the riots started, and Dinu was taken home from school by his friend, Maung Thiha Saw.
Despite his losses Rajkumar was now more adamant than ever about remaining in Burma: ‘I’ve lived here all my life; everything I have is here. I’m not such a coward as to give up everything I’ve worked for at the first sign of trouble. And anyway, what makes you think that we’ll be any more welcome in India than we are here? There are riots in India all the time—how do you know that the same thing wouldn’t happen to us there?’
Uma saw that Dolly was near collapse and she decided to stay on in Rangoon, to help her cope. A week became a month and then another. Every time she spoke of leaving Dolly asked her to stay on a little longer: ‘It’s not over yet— I can feel something in the air.’
As the weeks passed, there was a deepening of the sense of unease that had settled on the city. There were more strange events. There was talk of trouble at the Rangoon Lunatic Asylum, where several thousand homeless Indians had been accommodated after the riots. In the city gaol a mutiny erupted among the prisoners and was suppressed at the cost of many lives. There were whispers of an even greater upheaval in the offing.
One day a stranger stopped Dolly on the street: ‘Is it true that you worked in the Mandalay palace, in the time of King Thebaw?’ When Dolly answered in the affirmative the stranger gave her a smile. ‘Prepare yourself: there is soon to be another coronation. A prince has been found who will liberate Burma . . .’
A few days later they learnt that there had indeed been a coronation of sorts, not far from Rangoon: a healer by the name of Saya San had had himself crowned King of Burma, with all the traditional observances. He’d gathered together a motley band of soldiers and told them to avenge the capture of King Thebaw.
These rumours reminded Uma of the events that preceded the outbreak of the Indian uprising of 1857. Then too, well before the firing of the first shot, signs of trouble had appeared on the north Indian plains. Chapatis—those most unremarkable of everyday foods—had begun to circulate from village to village, as though in warning. No one knew where they came from or who had put them in motion—but somehow people had known that a great convulsion was on its way.
Uma’s premonition was proved right. The uprising started in the interior of Tharawaddy district, where a forest official and two village headmen were killed; the next day rebels stormed a railway station. A company of Indian troops was sent to hunt down the insurgents. But suddenly the rebels were everywhere: in Insein, Yamthin and Pyapon. They appeared like shadows from the forest, with magical designs painted on their bodies. They fought like men possessed, running bare-chested into gunfire, attacking aeroplanes with catapults and spears. Thousands of rural folk declared their allegiance to the King-in-waiting. The colonial authorities fought back by sending more Indian reinforcements to root out the rebellion. Villages were occupied, hundreds of Burmese were killed and thousands wounded.
For Uma, the uprising and the means of its suppression were the culmination of a month-long nightmare: it was as though she were witnessing the realisation of her worst fears; once again. Indian soldiers were being used to fortify the Empire. Nobody in India seemed to know of these events; no one seemed to care. It seemed imperative that someone should take on the task of letting the people of her country know.
It so happened that KLM, the Dutch airline, had recently started a plane service linking a chain of cities between Batavia and Amsterdam. There were now regular flights between Rangoon’s new airstrip at Mingaladon and Calcutta’s Dum Dum. The journey from Rangoon to Calcutta took some six hours—a fraction of the sailing time. Uma was by now too distraught to undertake the four-da
y steamship voyage: Rajkumar bought her a ticket on KLM.
In the Packard, on the way out to the airstrip at Mingaladon, Uma became tearful. ‘I can’t believe what I’ve seen here—the same old story, Indians being made to kill for the Empire, fighting people who should be their friends . . .’
She was interrupted by Rajkumar: ‘Uma, you’re talking nonsense.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Uma, have you for one moment stopped to ask yourself what would happen if these soldiers weren’t used? You were here during the riots: you saw what happened. What do you think these rebels would do to us—to me, to Dolly, to the boys? Don’t you see that it’s not just the Empire those soldiers are protecting, it’s also Dolly and me?’
The anger that Uma had held contained since Morningside came welling up. ‘Rajkumar, you’re in no position to offer opinions. It’s people like you who’re responsible for this tragedy. Did you ever think of the consequences when you were transporting people here? What you and your kind have done is far worse than the worst deeds of the Europeans.’
As a rule Rajkumar never challenged Uma on political matters. But he was on edge too now, and something snapped. ‘You have so many opinions, Uma—about things of which you know nothing. For weeks now I’ve heard you criticising everything you see: the state of Burma, the treatment of women, the condition of India, the atrocities of the Empire. But what have you yourself ever done that qualifies you to hold these opinions? Have you ever built anything? Given a single person a job? Improved anyone’s life in any way? No. All you ever do is stand back, as though you were above all of us, and you criticise and criticise. Your husband was as fine a man as any I’ve ever met, and you hounded him to his death with your self-righteousness.’
‘How dare you?’ Uma cried. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? You—an animal, with your greed, your determination to take whatever you can—at whatever cost. Do you think nobody knows about the things you’ve done to people in your power—to women and children who couldn’t defend themselves? You’re no better than a slaver and a rapist, Rajkumar. You may think that you will never have to answer for the things you’ve done, but you’re wrong.’
Without a further word to Uma, Rajkumar leant over to U Ba Kyaw and told him to stop the car. Then he stepped out on the road and said to Dolly: ‘I’ll find my own way back to the city. You see her off. I don’t want anything to do with her.’
At Mingaladon, Uma and Dolly found the plane waiting on the airstrip. It was a trimotor Fokker F-VIII, with a silver fuselage and wings that were held up by struts. Once they were out of the car, Dolly said in hushed voice: ‘Uma, you’re very angry with Rajkumar and I suspect I know why. But you should not judge him too harshly, you know; you must remember that I too bear some of the guilt . . .’
They were at the gates; Uma held Dolly fast.
‘Dolly, will this change everything—for us, you and me?’
‘No. Of course not. I’ll come to see you in Calcutta, whenever I can. It’ll be all right—you’ll see?’
part four
The Wedding
twenty
At the other end of the Bay of Bengal, in Calcutta, Uma’s brother and his family were waiting to receive her at the Dum Dum airstrip.
Her brother was a quiet and somewhat colourless man who worked in the accounts department of a shipping company. His wife was a severe asthmatic who rarely left the house. Of their children, Bela, a girl, was the youngest, at six. Her siblings were twins and they were a full seven years older. The older twin was a boy, Arjun; the younger was a girl and she went by her family nickname, Manju. Her given name—marvellous to recount—was ‘Brihannala’, which proved obdurately resistant to everyday use.
For the twins, Uma’s arrival in Calcutta was an event of unparalleled significance. This was not just because of who she was: it was at least partly because no one in the family had ever had occasion to go to Dum Dum before. It was just ten years since an aeroplane was first seen in Calcutta: in 1920, a Handley Page had been received at the racecourse by cheering crowds. Since then, planes belonging to Imperial Airways and Air France had also touched down in the city. But it was KLM that had started the first regular passenger service and the drama of its recently instituted comings and goings had held the city in thrall for months.
On the day of Uma’s arrival the excitement in the house was such that the family went to the unprecedented step of hiring a car, a new 1930 Austin Chummy. But the twins’ expectations were dashed on their arrival at the Dum Dum airstrip: there was nothing there but a stretch of tarmac, bordered by rice fields and coconut palms. This was too new a means of travel to have developed the trappings of ceremony. There was none of the pomp that accompanied an expedition to the docks: no uniformed sailors or peaked caps or beribboned harbourmasters. The terminal was a tin-roofed shed and the personnel consisted of foul-mouthed mechanics in grease-blackened overalls. What there was of a sense of occasion derived from the presence of the crowd of supporters who’d come to welcome Uma.
The waiting area consisted of a small, unroofed pen, fenced in with wire. The family, thoroughly intimidated, found itself pushed further and further back by Uma’s exuberant well-wishers. They heard the Fokker F-VIII while it was still hidden by clouds. Arjun was the first to spot it when it broke through, its squat silver body glinting between its double wings. Its silver fuselage wobbled above the palm trees as it came in to land.
There was a long wait in the sun before Uma was cleared. When the people ahead began to cheer they knew Uma was through. And then, suddenly, there she was, in person, very simply dressed, in a white cotton sari.
To the twins Uma was a creature of legend: the firebrand aunt who had dedicated herself to a life of politics instead of accepting the usual lot of the Hindu widow. On finding themselves in her presence they were awed into silence: it seemed incredible that their heroine should be a frail-looking woman, with greying hair and a haggard face.
On the way back to Lankasuka, they sat crowded together in the Austin, exchanging news, catching up. Then Uma did something that took her relatives completely by surprise: unaccountably, for no reason that they could understand, she began to cry. They stared in horror as she sobbed into her sari. Intimidated by her legend, they could not bring themselves to reach out to her. They sat in silence, fidgeting, no one daring to say a word.
When the ride was almost over, Uma collected herself. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she said, addressing no one in particular. ‘These last few months have been very hard. I feel as if I’m waking from a terrible dream. In Rangoon, just before I left there was a terrible quarrel. I must try to forget some of these things . . .’
It was a while before the family saw anything of Uma again. In the following months, she devoted all her energies to bringing the Burmese rebellion to the knowledge of the Indian public. She sent articles to Calcutta’s Modern Review and wrote letters to major newspapers; she made every effort to alert her compatriots to the part that Indian soldiers were being made to play in the suppression of the uprising. Her writings had no perceptible effect. The Indian public was consumed with the preoccupations of local politics and had little time to spare for Burma.
One day, opening a Bengali newspaper, she saw a grisly illustration of sixteen decapitated heads lined up on a table. The accompanying article said: These are the heads of Burmese rebels who fell in an encounter with Imperial troops in Prome District in Burma. It was believed that they were displayed at the military headquarters at Prome for the purpose of striking terror into the hearts of those who might be rebelliously inclined.
Uma tore the article out with shaking hands. She took it to her desk, intending to put it in the file where she kept her clippings. As she was putting it away, her eyes fell on the folder that held the remains of her KLM ticket: it had been lying forgotten on a corner of her desk ever since her arrival.
Looking at it now, she thought of the city she had flown out of in the silver Fok
ker; she thought of the businessmen— the timber merchants and oilmen—who were her fellow-passengers; she thought of how they had all congratulated themselves on being present at the dawn of a new era, an age when aviation would make the world so small that the divisions of the past would disappear. She too had joined in: looking down from above, on the foaming waves of the Bay of Bengal, it seemed impossible not to believe that the shrunken world that had built this aircraft was a better one than those that preceded it.
And now, a few months later, here was this picture—of sixteen severed heads, put on display by the ruling power—as starkly medieval an image as could be imagined. She recalled that Prome was the site of the Shwe Sandaw Pagoda, almost equal in veneration to Rangoon’s Shwe Dagon: she remembered a story that one of her fellow-passengers, a big, swarthy oilman, had told her. On the day of the earthquake he’d been sitting in the English Club at Prome, right beside the Shwe Sandaw Pagoda. Right before his eyes, the pagoda had been rent by the movement of the earth. A great part of it had come crashing down in the grounds of the club.
Uma’s eyes filled with remembered images: of the terrible sight she’d witnessed, framed in the windscreen of Dolly’s Packard; of Rajkumar and his chain of betrayals; of the quarrel in the car on the way to the airport; and now of the deaths of those sixteen rebels and their gruesome decapitation.
That day marked the beginning of a change in Uma that was no less profound than the upheaval that had followed upon the death of the Collector. With the defeat of Burma’s Saya San rebellion, she started to rethink her political ideas in their entirety. It was precisely on an uprising such as this that she and her political associates in the Ghadar Party had once pinned their hopes. But she saw now that a popular insurrection, inspired by legend and myth, stood no chance of prevailing against a force such as the Empire—so skilful and ruthless in its deployment of its overwhelming power; so expert in the management of opinion. In retrospect it became clear that disarmed, technologically backward populations such as those of India and Burma could not hope to defeat by force a well-organised and thoroughly modern military power; that even if such an effort were to succeed it would be at the cost of unimaginable bloodshed—a Saya San rebellion magnified many hundreds of times—that it would pit Indians against one another in such a way as to make victory just as undesirable as defeat.
