The Circle of Reason

by Amitav Ghosh

  Every student would have to enrol for two years. It would be assumed that the students would carry on working on the land, or doing whatever they usually did for a living, while they were studying at the school, so the classes would be held in the late afternoon and early evening. Night classes were a possibility to be thought of later.

  But a question nagged Balaram: ought the school to charge a fee? He disliked the idea. Fees will never cover our costs, he said, and they might keep some people away.

  Shombhu Debnath scratched his head. It’s not the money that’s important, he said. It’s something else. If you don’t charge fees, no one will come, you’ll see, and people will laugh. People never take anything seriously unless they have to pay for it. It’s like those missionaries’ Bibles, given away by the truckload and only good for firewood.

  So they decided to charge a fee of four rupees a month; not enough to deter anyone, nor too little to be considered a serious investment.

  But mainly the school would finance itself by selling the cloth produced by students during class and by taking orders for tailoring. And here there was a job for Rakhal, too. If he agreed, he could be the school’s Sales Manager, in charge of the business of selling the school’s cloth in Naboganj. Balaram was a little worried about a possible charge of nepotism for hiring every member of Shombhu Debnath’s family; but, on the other hand, as he explained conscientiously, Rakhal was perfectly suited to the job – there were few people in Lalpukur who had his expert knowledge of Naboganj and its markets, and he had already proved his worth in marketing Alu’s cloth.

  The money earned by selling cloth and by tailoring would be used to buy yarn and dyes and possibly more looms (more work for Rakhal), and for the teachers’ salaries. Balaram was adamant that everyone who taught or worked in the school would be paid a proper wage. This is not charity after all, he said. We want everyone to work hard, and no one works too hard for a charity.

  If there was any money left over after paying salaries and buying fresh yarn and so on, it could be distributed equally among the students. But Balaram was willing to recognize, realistically, that that was an unlikely prospect for some time.

  As for the site, that was a problem already solved. There was plenty of space outside Balaram’s house for a bamboo-and-thatch shed to house the weaving section. A couple of looms could easily be installed there. Toru-debi, if she agreed to teach, would probably prefer to take her classes in a room inside the house. And there were plenty of other rooms, and the courtyard besides, for Balaram to teach in.

  They would need some money to start with, of course, but Balaram had solved that problem, too. He had a little money put away in the bank, enough to get the school going. It would be only a loan, of course, and the school could pay him back once it was on its feet.

  So it’s all very simple, you see, Balaram said, looking straight into Shombhu Debnath’s eyes. Simple and beautiful: knowledge coupled with labour – and that, too, labour of a kind which represents the highest achievement of practical reason. Our school will be the perfect embodiment, the essence of Reason. And so, naturally, it can only be named after the greatest of all the soldiers of Reason – Louis Pasteur.

  Shombhu Debnath smiled and looked away. But that’s not all, he said, is it? There’s something else on your mind, too, isn’t there, something you haven’t told me? I haven’t heard you say anything about that carbolic stuff you’re so fond of. Where does that fit in?

  Balaram started guiltily. This is enough, he said, for the moment. One has to think of a beginning before one can think of an end.

  With his first major hurdle crossed Balaram went ahead with redoubled energy. He had always been fairly sure that he could count on Alu and Maya, and he was proved right. They agreed willingly. Even Rakhal jumped at his offer. Balaram did not know it, but Rakhal was passing through a period of bewilderment and anxiety then. His income from his bombs had dried up because the market for home-made bombs in Naboganj had suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed. Some of his regular customers turned him away saying that there had been a shift in the political climate. His friends whispered that the big producers had stepped in to drive the small fry out, and there was a rumour that the stockpiles from the war had suddenly been released on the market. Rakhal neither knew nor cared. His newly acquired skill had given him endless pleasure, and suddenly it was useless. And, as though that were not enough, the kung fu class, so long the centre of his life, had shut its doors on him. He had twice absent-mindedly beaten the teacher (who had advertised a few more skills than he actually possessed) into a dead faint. Nobody else would fight him. He was too forgetful, they said; he could never remember that it was just practice. The only consolation left to Rakhal was an occasional kung fu film at a morning show in Naboganj, and even those he would not have been able to afford if it were not for his percentage of the money he made from selling Alu’s cloth (which was not so much after all). Balaram’s offer came when Rakhal was steadying himself to face a choice between giving up cigarettes or films – or, worse, asking Alu for a loan. When Balaram told him about the job, he could hardly believe his luck.

  Balaram was still left with the problem of persuading Toru-debi to teach in the school. Twice he began to explain to her, but both times his courage failed him and he ended in stammering confusion. To his enormous surprise, when he did finally ask her, she was not merely willing, but enthusiastic. No sooner had she heard him out than she bustled off to her room to find her old cut-out models and plan her first lessons.

  The school could not have had a better beginning. After that it was just a question of building a shed outside Balaram’s front door and installing Shombhu Debnath’s looms there, and of buying a few slates and some lead, possibly a few blackboards as well, and stocking up on a fair quantity of yarn.

  Balaram delegated the building of the shed to Shombhu Debnath, Rakhal and Alu. Of course, said Shombhu Debnath. I’ll take charge. But once they started work he spent most of his time squatting on his heels and throwing sidelong glances down the red-dust path which ran past Balaram’s house while Rakhal and Alu planned and built the shed. It was a very simple structure – long and rectangular with chhanch walls, flimsy squares of plaited bamboo shavings, held up by bamboo posts driven into the earth at two-foot intervals. They cut the posts from the thickets behind Balaram’s house. Only the plaited shavings and thatch for the roof had to be bought, and that was a matter of a couple of hundred rupees.

  Balaram tried to help Rakhal and Alu build the shed, but they would not let him, for it was almost certain that he would hurt himself. So Balaram had to content himself with sitting on the steps outside his front door and watching them.

  Rakhal and Alu worked fast, and the shed shot out of the ground. They were interrupted only once. Bhudeb Roy had been watching the shed go up from his veranda. He was intrigued as well as suspicious. One day, a few days before sending off his monthly report to the police station, he decided to make inquiries. He walked down the red-dust path to Balaram’s house, with a few of his sons behind him.

  Shombhu Debnath saw him coming down the path and scrambled into the branches of a tree. Bhudeb-babu, he called down, how’s it going? Getting it up still or are you going to bring some more planes down on us? Any more on the way?

  Bhudeb Roy ignored him, but his sons threw a few pebbles into the tree. Shombhu Debnath cackled with laughter.

  Balaram was sitting on the steps outside his front door. Seeing Bhudeb Roy turn into the path which led to the house, he was suddenly very flustered. He rose quickly to his feet and looked around him. Then he hurried across to a drum of carbolic acid which had been left outside the house, against a wall. Planting himself in front of it, he spread his hands protectively across.

  Bhudeb Roy saw him, smiled politely, and made his way towards him, skirting round the shed. Don’t come any closer, Balaram rapped out when he was a few feet away.

  Bhudeb Roy stopped and looked at him in surprise. What’s the matter,
Balaram-babu? he said. I only wanted to ask you whether you’re buying cattle. This shed … ?

  Balaram glared at him: No. It’s for a school.

  Bhudeb Roy’s cordiality drained away. His tiny eyes hardened. Have you bought this land? he said.

  Balaram, watching him closely, his face drawn with tension, said: No.

  Bhudeb Roy rubbed his huge jaw and bared his teeth in a smile. Then, I have to tell you, he said, that you can’t build here. You’re encroaching on government property.

  Balaram stood erect and swept a mass of silver hair from his forehead. Bhudeb-babu, he said, Pasteur didn’t allow misguided and superstitious people to stop him from building his laboratory at Villeneuve l’Etang. Nor shall we. If the government wants its land, let it file a case in the district court. That’s all I have to say to you.

  We’ll see, Bhudeb Roy said through his teeth. We’ll see. He turned and walked back towards his house. Be careful, Shombhu Debnath called after him, from his perch. A man could hurt himself at your age.

  Balaram, shaken, went into the house. He came out with an old tattered blanket and threw it over the drum of carbolic acid.

  Next evening Alu wandered into Balaram’s study. Balaram was making notes by the harsh light of a naked electric bulb. He was pleased to see Alu, for it was a long time since he had stepped into the study. He smiled and, prompted by years of half-forgotten habit, patted the arm of his easy chair. Come here, he said. Come and sit. Then it occurred to him that Alu had long since grown too heavy for the arm of the easy chair, and he hastily changed his gesture and waved at a chair. Sit down, he said, get that chair.

  Alu did not seem to hear him. He stood over the easy chair, looking at the floor and shifting his feet. What’s the matter? Balaram asked, surprised. Are you looking for a book?

  No, said Alu, and scratched his head.

  Then? Science Today?

  I want … , Alu blurted out, I want to get married.

  Oh! said Balaram. He ran his hand through his hair: That’s a big business. We must set about it scientifically. We have to think about the right personality types and things like that. We can’t set about it in a hurry …

  Balaram stopped; he had a sudden glimpse of regions of immense effort and risk. Nervously he said: It takes a lot of work. You’d better talk to your aunt. Maybe she knows a girl. Perhaps she could advertise in the newspapers. I don’t think I’ll be able to help.

  No, no, Alu broke in, I already have a wife. He stopped, flustered: What I mean is I already know someone. A girl. That’s what I mean.

  You mean … ? Balaram looked at him in disbelief. You mean … love? A love-marriage?

  Alu was almost tearful with embarrassment. Yes, he said, his voice a strangled bleat. I want to marry Maya. Maya Debnath.

  Balaram rose from his chair and threw his arms around Alu. Hugging him to his chest, he ran a hand over his knobbly head. I’m very glad, Alu, he said, his voice choked. Very glad, and very happy. She’s a good girl. You have … you have the blessings of the Cosmic Boson, as Gopal would say.

  He stopped and dropped his arms. But I don’t know, he said pensively, what Toru will say. Because, you know, Maya works here, and women have their own ideas about these things. But that doesn’t matter. Mere prejudice. We can persuade her …

  Then a thought struck Balaram and he cut himself short. Frowning, he began to pace the floor. Alu watched him in silence. After a minute or two Balaram stopped opposite Alu and said: Maybe you should wait a bit, Alu. You know what weddings are. People everywhere. There’ll be dozens of people running in and out of the house and we can’t keep an eye on everyone. It’s not safe. Anything could happen to the carbolic.

  He leant towards Alu and whispered: Did you see Bhudeb Roy yesterday? Did you see how he looked at the carbolic? He’s planning something; I know him. He’s thinking of ways to get at it. We have to be careful. Very careful. We have to watch him. There’s nothing he won’t do to get his hands on that carbolic.

  But he wasn’t looking at the carbolic acid, Alu said in surprise. He went across to talk to you.

  Balaram silenced him with a gesture. You don’t know, he whispered angrily. You’re too young. That’s how he always goes about things. The carbolic is what he really wanted. He fears it like a fox fears light. He fears it because it’s clean. He’d do anything … No, it wouldn’t be safe to hold a wedding in the house now. He could easily slip his men into the house. No, Alu, you’ll have to wait a bit. Wait till the school is properly on its feet, then we’ll give you a wedding to remember.

  But … , Alu began.

  No, said Balaram. He squeezed Alu’s shoulder. Listen to me – just this once.

  All right, Alu said reluctantly.

  Balaram led him to the door of his study. He patted him on the back and said: Just a few months. That’s all. Right now we have the school to think about.

  A week later the shed was ready, and in another two weeks the looms had been installed, the slates and the yarn bought and an order placed with a carpenter for two blackboards. A board painted by Balaram and Alu appeared on top of the shed declaring the Pasteur School of Reason open for admissions.

  The news spread, and over the next few days most people in Lalpukur found one excuse or another to wander down the red-dust path and steal a suspicious look at the new school. But nobody stepped in. There was not so much as one admission. The shed didn’t look like a school. It was not even remotely like the familiar tiled, yellow, corridored buildings that people associated with schools. Nor did it look at all like the tin-roofed garages of the commercial and secretarial colleges in Naboganj. It was something else altogether; possibly malign, possibly not. People were curious, but no one was willing to be the first to find out.

  It was Rakhal who stepped in at that critical point in the school’s history when it was teetering on the knife’s edge of oblivion. Rakhal had temporarily lost interest in the school after helping to build the shed. Then one day he noticed Alu and Maya sitting dejected by the empty loom-pits in their courtyard, steaming gloom.

  He laughed when he heard of the school’s straits. Why didn’t you tell me? he said. A simple thing like that and there you are sitting all long-faced and weepy. You wait, there’ll be a crowd outside the school tomorrow.

  There was; not precisely a crowd perhaps, but quite as good as far as Balaram was concerned. Rakhal had gone off to the banyan tree and found a few of his old cronies. He had slapped a few backs and twisted a few arms. Bolai-da, who was well disposed towards the school, had added a few encouraging words, and it was done. Next morning six young men stepped nervously into the school.

  The Pasteur School of Reason was in business at last.

  Once a lead had been given the more timid picked up courage. In a few weeks the school had twenty-two students. There were, after all, as Balaram knew, so many people in Lalpukur who had nothing to do; people who spent the long days dreaming of learning a trade. In a few months the school had forty-eight students, many more than it could take comfortably, and Balaram had to close the rolls and turn away new applicants. The School of Reason was full: it had ten-year-old boys, married men with families who did odd jobs during the day, young men saving to marry, wizened old men too bent to work in the fields. There were women, too, young and old. Women had overcome their initial suspicion of the school after they had been given the lead by a determined and desperate young widow of twenty-five who had three children and no means of support apart from a cousin’s capricious generosity. Balaram did his best to encourage them to join, and when he closed his rolls the school had eighteen women. All but two of them had opted to join Toru-debi’s tailoring section.

  Soon the school was producing more cloth than Rakhal could handle alone, and he had to hire the occasional helper (who went down in Balaram’s register as Assistant Sales Managers). The Tailoring Section did even better than Weaving; they were taking in orders from all the villages around Lalpukur, for their work had somehow, by word of
mouth, acquired a reputation for durability. At the end of six months the school had earned a substantial sum of money. Balaram was frankly envious when he added up the total. I wish, he said wistfully to Alu and Shombhu Debnath, I wish Pure Reason had a product – something one could sell to gauge its worth.

  But he was also delighted. After paying off arrears of salaries, buying new stocks of yarn and so on, there was still a fair amount of money left. Part of it was spent on acquiring a new loom and a secondhand sewing machine for the school. The rest was used to start a fund which would help the students acquire their own sewing machines and looms after they graduated. Balaram gave the students a little lecture when he started the fund. You won’t be in the school for ever, he said, and you must think of the future. You may think you would rather have the money in your pockets now, but you would only regret it later. Someday you’ll have to start working on your own and, if you don’t have any machines then, your skills will be wasted. It’s then that you will thank me for starting this fund.

  The students clapped. Balaram looked around his courtyard, crowded with smiling students, and he was filled with pride. Afterwards, earthen cups of tea were handed out to everyone (Nonder-ma had been busy making tea for hours, in preparation). The courtyard was full of laughter and cheerful optimism.

  The school is a success, Balaram said to Shombhu Debnath, waving a hand at the courtyard. It’s a greater success than anything we could have imagined.

  Shombhu Debnath grunted. He had wrapped a white cotton shawl over his bare shoulders for the occasion, but he had not changed out of his usual red gamcha. He looked slyly at Balaram. But that’s not all, Balaram-babu, he said, is it? A success of this kind wouldn’t be enough for you. You have something else in mind, don’t you?