Flame Tree Road (14 page)

Father Anthony had picked them up at the annual charity auction to raise money for student scholarships. He had admired the box and the bell so much he’d ended up bidding well beyond his means for them. They were impeccably crafted, and every day he derived great pleasure just to look at them sitting on his desk.

Biren Roy was an exceptional student. He was meticulous, a perfectionist. His single-minded concentration and monk-like devotion to any given task was rather unusual for one so young. That child would make an excellent priest, thought Father Anthony. What a pity he had chosen not to embrace Christianity.

At first, Father Anthony was delighted to see him at church, but for some unknown reason the boy stopped coming. The child did not appear troubled in any way. He cheerfully did any chore he was given on Sundays; he just chose not go to church, for reasons of his own. Normally Father Anthony would have had a private conversation with a student to find out the reason for his change of heart, but he did not feel the need to do so this time because Biren was an exemplary student in every way. In fact, he was the very poster child of the same Christian values the school tried to instill in their students.

Father Anthony had already made up his mind, when the time came, to recommend Biren Roy for the Cambridge scholarship. The boy came from a poor village in Sylhet, he had lost his father at a tender age and nobody was more deserving than him. This fine young man would do Saint John’s Mission proud, of that Father Anthony had no doubt.

London

2nd March 1889

Dear Biren,

It is a miracle to connect with you after all these years! I am very excited that you will be in England soon, and congratulations, dear friend, on your scholarship to Cambridge. Why am I not surprised?

I tried several times over the years to get in touch with you. My relatives in the village told me both you and your brother were studying in an English boarding school in Calcutta but they had no further details. I was very sorry to hear about your father’s tragic death. The relative I wrote to ask about your whereabouts was reluctant to meet with your mother. Therefore, you can imagine my joy when you went to our village home and got my address and wrote to me. Now you are coming to England!

After completing my schooling in Harrow, I studied in Cambridge for a while. Now I am studying for my law degree in London. My older brother, Diju, and his English wife, Veronica, live in London and I stay with them. My mother and my immediate family are in Calcutta. A few of my relatives, including my grandmother, still live in our village home, the house with the big sour plum tree, do you remember?

Please let me know the details of your travel so I can meet your ship in London. You must spend a few days with me so I can show you around the city.

I will write more about myself in the next letter.

With best wishes,

Sammy (Samir Deb)

On August 15, 1889, Biren Roy, aged seventeen, boarded the P&O liner the
Britannica
and set sail for London. He carried sixteen shillings in his pocket, and inside his steel trunk packed lovingly by his mother were two hand-knitted mufflers and a three-year supply of dried ginger root to ward off the dreaded cough of England.

A feeling of desolation came over him as the ship pulled away from the Calcutta shoreline. Biren had lived away from home for most of his growing years, but he had never experienced the terrifying sense of disconnect he felt now. To be cut off from his birthplace by the endless sea seemed cruel and final—like a feather plucked from a wing. This separation would leave Biren forever stranded between two worlds with a finger stretched toward his homeland, almost touching, but never quite making the connection.

London

23rd September 1889

London is bewildering!

People rush in and out of buildings, step in and out of carriages, fold and unfold umbrellas—everything is in constant motion. What a contrast to village life in India, where boats, bullock carts and people flow, sway and amble along like they have all the time in the world.

The jittery haste of London has much to do with the inclement weather, I have concluded. One never knows what to expect. In a single day I watched a sparkling morning collapse with a thundery squall into a wet squelchy afternoon. The evening, surprisingly, was marvelously clear and enjoyable.

And the people!

Exquisitely gowned women with impossible waists and astonishing hats step in and out of carriages, their skirts lifted daintily in gloved hands. Their hats baffle me, as they can resemble anything from a plumbing fixture to a plumed creature of frightening proportions. Handkerchiefs are dropped strategically in front of select gentlemen to invite conversation. The Englishman carries himself with palpable pride. You can see it in the tilt of his chin, the swing of his cane, the cut and fashion of his clothing. They tip their hats and exchange polite nods. Even among acquaintances there is a level of formality and restraint. Watching them interact is like watching a courtly play of manners. How unlike the ways of my own countrymen with their loud cries of recognition and foot-waggling chatter over cups of tea.

The imperial prosperity of Britain is evident everywhere. Every wall in the city is plastered with advertisements of get-rich-quick investments, outrageous inventions and miracle health remedies. Small paperboys with chapped cheeks and the scheming eyes of grown men cry, “Payper! Payper! Speyshul.” They zigzag across the tram track under the noses of thundering horses. Waiflike shopgirls stare out at the street with vacant eyes, and the grand old coachman in his long dark coat perched on top of his cab tips his hat and calls you “guvnor.”

My old friend Samir Deb—who now calls himself Sammy—was at the port to meet me. He was hard to miss in his shiny blue suit with a pink carnation in the buttonhole. With his pomade-slicked hair, small tidy moustache and ivory tipped cane, he is quite the dandy. Sammy had an English girl on his arm whom he introduced as Dottie Dawson. Dottie has brass-colored hair and talks in an accent I can barely follow. She appears to be Sammy’s latest love interest, although Sammy tells me—aside, in Bengali—his mother is looking for a girl for him to marry in India.

At the end of two exhausting days of sightseeing—and getting pickpocketed in Piccadilly—I will leave for Cambridge tomorrow where the most important chapter of my life is waiting to begin.

Cambridge

28th September 1889

This is my fourth day in Cambridge. Yesterday I walked around till I got a hole in my shoe. There is a substantial hole in my funds, as well. I am now reduced to six shillings and forty pence. Just as well, my food and board is paid for, but I will need to buy an umbrella, soap and candles, so I must look for part-time employment without further delay.

It is frightfully cold. The marshy lowlands surrounding Cambridge exude a crypt-like damp that gnaws at the bone. For accommodations I have been assigned a monk-like cell with moth-colored walls in a crumbling boardinghouse called Brockwell Lodge. It is right next to the university library and a ten-minute walk from King’s College where I will be spending most of my time. The room is a double occupancy but I am told my roommate, a gentleman by the name of E. M. White, who was expected to arrive from Dublin, has taken ill and will not be joining this term, so for the moment I have the room to myself. The room is sparsely furnished with a desk and bed. The high ceilings make it rather drafty. Thank God for the coal fireplace. I may have to use my last penny to buy coal. Next on my list are stamps and candles. I will forgo the soap for now.

On the whole I feel a sense of elation. It is nothing short of a miracle that I am in Cambridge, England. There is a monastic stillness about this place. The pale stone architecture with its archways, turrets, spires, the great carved frescos and pillared halls, so richly steeped in history and legend, make me feel like I am on hallowed ground. To think of all the monumental discoveries, movements in science, art, literature and emerging political thought that have taken place within these walls, and to walk the same hallways and breathe the same air as Darwin, Newton, Tennyson and Donne, feels rather unreal. The enormity of it all is just beginning to sink in.

The hole in my shoe and my wet socks are a constant reminder I will need to earn money soon. I checked the help-wanted sections on the notice boards of different colleges. There is part-time work available at the bindery of the University Press. Also odd jobs such as gardening, cleanup, woodworking, painting, roof repairs, welding—all of which I am capable of doing thanks to my training at Saint John’s Mission. I will be eternally grateful to them for that. Had I arrived here straight from the village I would have been completely useless. Tomorrow I will make inquiries and see which jobs are still available. First, I must find a cobbler in town to mend my shoe. I have stuffed a piece of cardboard inside for now. Also, I find an umbrella is not enough. I may have to invest in a secondhand raincoat.

Cambridge

30th September 1889

Yesterday I worked the night shift in the bindery. I came back to my room to find a note slipped under my door inviting me to an evening soiree to meet the Bengali student group of Cambridge. It was signed Samaresh Bannerjee, and the address is a boardinghouse in Kingsway, about a fifteen-minute walk from my hostel.

Samaresh Bannerjee is a brilliant philosophy student completing his doctorate in Cambridge. A genteel Bengali with a pampered moustache, he has a musical voice and dresses in silk pajamas and gold embroidered slippers. Samaresh hails from the famous Bannerjee family of Calcutta. They are high caste Brahmins who denounced orthodoxy to form the Bhramo Samaj, a reformist group who are pushing social change for women. The Bannerjee clan is very wealthy, having amassed vast fortunes through their family business in law, indigo, shipping and publishing. What I admire most is their commitment to philanthropy. Samaresh is older than the other students in this group. I would put his age around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He is already married with a young wife in Calcutta.

As a postgraduate student he enjoys the privileges of a large pleasant room with a comfortable seating area, to which he has added brightly colored silk bolsters, a Kashmiri carpet and Madhubani paintings to create a cozy feeling of home. The windows of his room look out on a peaceful communal garden with stone benches dappled with the shade of plane trees. There is a kindly patriarchal air about Samaresh, and his room has become the gathering place for the Indian students of Cambridge.

Most Indian students, I find, do not socialize with the English. They stay glued to academics and rarely venture outside their rooms or study halls. The class and cultural differences create some awkwardness, as well. English students bond through sports and extracurricular activities. Cambridge attracts scholars of exceptional merit from around the world. It is also the wealthiest university in Europe and funded almost entirely by endowments. The majority of Cambridge students are sons of English aristocracy or landed gentry who take university education for granted. For them it is simply a rite of passage and not a life raft—like it is for some of us.

CHAPTER

22

Samaresh had a crackling log fire going and two braziers for added warmth. With plenty of sweet cardamom tea and arrowroot biscuits to go around, a nostalgic mood prevailed among the Bengali students gathered in his room. One of them pulled out the harmonium and started singing a popular song. Another accompanied him with a tabla beat drummed on a wooden desk. When several voices joined in a rousing chorus, there was hardly a dry eye left in the room. A sentimental song about rivers, heartbreak and monsoon skies never failed to stir up a deep longing for home.

Later the conversation turned, as it invariably did with Bengalis, to politics.

“The English people have a superiority complex,” declared Ram, a third-year medical student. “They think they can rule the world just because they are white.”

Samaresh thoughtfully stroked his well-tended moustache. He sat in a half-lotus position, one arm draped over a raised knee like a maharaja. “It’s more than being white,” he said in his sonorous voice. “The English know how to manipulate minds.”