Filed under: Christ Church College, Kanpur, Lal Imli Woollen Mills, MacRobert Gunj
Cawnpore
Before Independence Kanpur was spelled ‘Cawnpore’. Its population had a well balanced variety of people from different regions of the country, as well as a number of Englishmen occupying posts in the administration, among managerial staff, as foremen or supervisors in the factories, many of whom had families. There were few missionaries of European origin, such as the principal of the Christ Church College.
Many of you will remember a bungalow with its sprawling green lawn just across the street in front of our house in MacRobert gunj, the white inhabitants of which became, from time to time, the object of abundant interest on the part of the young on our side of the road, especially when they had a party – you could guess it, with the motor-cars started lining up along the road in the evening. The efforts of the tiny spectators climbing on the railings were rewarded and their excitement reached some sort of a peak, as soon as half-silhouettes of dancing pairs (the lower halves remaining a mystery behind the boundary wall) appeared, gliding between the pillars of the lighted veranda. The little that was visible, furnished enough ingredients to cook up fantastic visions.
Close to our house there was the Parsi cemetery with a triangular garden, a shady and quiet place and somewhat mysterious in its turn. The Parsi and the Marwari were mostly businessmen. There were some Punjabi businessmen too, and very few Bengalis. Among the hospital-staff the nurses were as a rule Christian or Anglo-Indian. There were some Muslim male nurses and compounders; our Dadu had a Muslim dentist by the name of Aslam, and my younger brothers – an unforgettable teacher by the name of Sher Muhammad Khan in the Government. High School. A large part of the Muslims were tannery workers, shopkeepers, butchers and the like. Their women wore black `burqa’ assorted with a rectangular patch crocheted in matching colour and sewn mostly on the height of the eyes. The Hindu population was well distributed in many professions and all classes of the society.
Bengali migrants formed a minority of educated and trained people, many of them holding executive posts, some in clerical jobs and others were teachers and professors, among them a number of women. Dr. Radharaman Ganguly, our maternal grandfather, had started his career in the government’s medical service, and had been posted successively in Bahraich in eastern U.P., in Dehradoon and/or in Nainital before coming to Kanpur as chief medical officer in the Lal Imli Woollen Mill. As Mesdi has noted earlier, to the thousands of workers of the factory and their families, he was simply their “mai-baap”. I don’t think I’ll be able to give the right measure of his life’s work nor of his personality. Neither a saint nor a superman, he belongs to the race of those sustaining the order of the world.
Members of the Bengali community from all parts of the town knew that he didn’t charge fees for consultations. The fact was, that he was on duty for all 24 hours – day and night, and was, consequently, not supposed to have a private practice. But when people just drifted in – we had no telephone, so no appointment was ever fixed in advance – he couldn’t refuse to receive them at his residence. Many took undue advantage of his generosity, and he wasn’t duped, but so it was with him. In course of time some of his patients became friends of the family.
At this point I’m starting to feel, that the narration’s slipping away in digressions, it’s escaping me. Shake up Saraju! They’re looking at their watches. Ei to ami! We had just entered in my gallery of portraits, no?
You see, it has pictures and pictures : beautiful aunts and good uncles, Didima’s team with our cows, Bhandari Maharaj and his nephews, Chaudhurain, Mrs Ghosh, Nadur ma, Manorajan Purut Thakur, Phuphi, Ganga Maiya the astrologer, Chedilal master and her other protégés; Dadu’s numberless patients, not to speak of Sannyasini Shyamalchhaya, coiffeur Gurdin – terror of the kids, Chinaman with his enormous bag of Shantung silk tied on the seat of his bike, faces and figures, looks and smiles, seen through young eyes and remained indelible through the years. Shall I be able to tell the tale of our two houses? Surely, not alone.
I know, you’ll come along, you’ll jump into the scene, catch the thread, hold it on and then, pass it on to the next narrator waiting in the wings.
To be continued.
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