Take a peep

The story begins in the summer of 1906 with the inauguration of the new Howrah railway station. The general manager of the East Indian Railways, Mr Quested, has organized a grand reception to celebrate the occasion. The Governor and the burra sahibs are being entertained on the main platform with champagne while the band plays European music, ending with Auld lang syne. In a separate room, the Indian staff, composed of some 70 clerks, are gorging themselves on samosas, pakoras, jalebis and having cups of tea. The seniormost among them is Tarini Chatterjee, who is in charge of two trains. Like his countrymen, he stuffs himself with sweets, salties and chai till he is about to burst.

As the engine whistle blows, everyone boards the train in its trial run. While his colleagues get into compartments meant for Indians, Tarini, in utter confusion, gets into the one reserved for whites and finds a window seat. While he is admiring the silk window curtains, the seat facing him is taken by an English girl. Just out of school in England, she is wearing a bonnet and a silk frock. She introduces herself as Adela Quested, daughter of the big boss. As the train begins to pull out of the station, Tarini throws up all he had eaten. His vomit falls on the lap of Adela Quested. Her father does not chastize Tarini in public but sees to it that he is demoted, with no chance of ever getting promoted again. Tarini goes into a deep depression and starts drinking heavily. Both he and his wife fade out of the world.

Then the story is taken up by Tarini’s son, Abani Chatterjee. After a shaky start, he makes good as an actor in the newly started silent film industry, known in the early years as bioscope. It is through these silent movies that the history of Bengal is told — starting from the Black Hole tragedy of Calcutta (1758), the Partition of Bengal (1905), the terrorist movement, which is seen as more anti-Muslim than anti-British, to the life of the Sanskrit scholar, William Jones. In most of the mythological films, the heroine’s role is played by an Anglo-Indian girl calling herself Durga.

Abani Chatterjee’s end comes in much the same way as his father’s. Bengal Club, which was then exclusively for the whites, allows its lawns to be used for the launch party of a series of new bioscope to be produced by a Marwari entrepreneur. Abani babu gets very drunk at the party and his bladder is about to burst. He stumbles into the cloakroom of the club and begins to urinate in the ladies’ section. And who would he run into but Adela Quested? She is celebrating her engagement to an Anglo-Indian owner of tea estates and coal mines. Abani babu crashes straight over Adela and knocks her down. As a consequence, his Marwari patron sacks him.

This is the story of Indrajit Hazra’s new novel, The Bioscope Man. It holds the readers’ interest till the very end. It is laced with wit and humour and is informative as well.

Who did it?

I am not an admirer of detective fiction. When there are so many true cases of murder that defy reason because of the apparent absence of motive, why make up jigsaw puzzles of imagined murders? Be it Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, the detectives keep the readers guessing till the last. The detective novels are also called thrillers, although I don’t get much thrill reading them.

John Le Carré has made quite a name for himself in this genre of fiction with a succession of bestsellers starting with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to the trilogy, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People. A nephew of mine presented me with an earlier novel, A Murder of Quality, first published in 1962. I read the third edition printed two years ago. Once started, I could not put it down.

Le Carré is a product of Oxford, taught in Eton and was in the British foreign service for five years. The setting of A Murder of Quality is a public school modelled on Eton. It is a small community of teachers and students conscious of their superior status compared to hoi polloi (they dress for dinner even at home). The teachers are extremely class-conscious: those who come from public schools and universities like Oxford feel superior to those who come from the grammar schools. A product of a grammar school is married to a woman above his status. In due course of time, she begins to hate and fear her husband. She writes to a religious journal she subscribes to, expressing fears for her life. Next night, her blood-splattered body is found lying on the snow. Could the murderer be her husband? Could it be the mad beggar woman who was often fed and clothed by the victim? A few days later, a boy who often came for tuitions to the school is found drowned in a stream. Was this death planned or was it an accident? The police and everyone in the local pub and the school has his or her theories about the two deaths. Although I enjoyed reading the novel, I learnt very little from it besides the manners and style of living of the English gentry in the 1960s.

Things that come free

I bought a five kilolitre tin of refined oil from the market and gave it to my wife, Savinder. After some time, my wife asked me “Where is the free gift?” I asked, “What gift?” She showed me the tin on which was written: “Cholesterol free”. “Where is this free cholesterol?”, she asked.