#1: Kolkata August 1946 and me

Thinking back to a luminous Kolkata

 But first the darkness of August 1946

I

In the beginning I was a child dazzled by my surroundings. So I think I can’t go wrong with a beginning about singing and writing and acting and dancing. I think  I can’t neglect politics and history, mathematics and science either. Every sensation, every thought, every sound, every gesture has reminded me of something else, from then to this moment. No wonder that alongside the brilliance of starlight on mud huts I keep seeing the blinding dark horizon—that journey into nothingness. More than anything else, the horizon comes back as a narrow passage bordering a chasm where there is a lot of fear and only a sliver of hope, and I think I must account for this vista, this scenery. 

I think It is fashionable, though on occasion apparent, to talk about “the connectedness of things”. But to absorb this connectedness phenomenally and with a thousand lurking questions is an experience that is hard to describe. So where do I start? With the language of music and rhythm of poetry, or with screams of the doomed thrown helter-skelter by a wind of ashes? I choose first to take the precarious journey into violence without remorse that swoops down on children who are not prepared for obliteration. I think that the comfort in songs I hummed way back and the mystery in points of light I discovered later can wait. I mean, let me first try to find out something about the wounds, then the healing, more wounds, perhaps a little less healing, and so on. It remains difficult even today to predict who will have the last word.

II

On August 16, 1946, just over a year after America dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and ushered in a new age of incomprehensible destruction, residents of our majority Hindu neighborhood in Kalighat, Kolkata, started killing Muslims. From an upstairs window I could see bands of young people, daggers and sticks in hand, roaming around looking for Muslims to catch. Naturally, no one in our street allowed children to venture out—but I remember sneaking out to the main road one time. That’s when… I’ll return to that in a minute.

Our house—now a marriage registrar’s office—was at the corner of  Sadananda Road and Kalidas Patitundi Lane. Across the lane, the neighbors had rented out a room to a couple of Muslim tailors from East Bengal. I often saw the two men come and go, usually with a smile and a greeting. And the kids of their landlord’s house were my buddies. After riots broke out in many areas of the city on that fateful day, a roving band of assassins came looking for those two tenants. How those crazed people knew exactly where the tailors lived I still don’t know. They confronted the landlord and wanted to know where his tenants were. The old man pointed out that his renters must be away as their room was locked from the outside. The head of the hunters insisted that our neighbor open the lock, and he did. Some of the hoodlums barged into the room, hoping to find a couple of cowering sacrificial Muslims, but there was no one there. Then suddenly, with the astuteness of a trained detective, one of the invaders discovered that someone had had a meal recently—there were wet dishes near a faucet. The mob confronted the landlord again. I remember him as a white haired gentleman with tranquil eyes and a chiseled countenance.

“You must have hidden the bastards, we’ll search your house now,” someone in the crowd shouted. Others cheered him on. 

Our neighbor looked the head man in the eye and said, “No I haven’t hidden anybody. You saw that they had left. And no one is coming into my home.” He stood firm guarding the front door. Behind him stood other grownups of his household.

There was a moment of eerie silence enveloping the confrontation. Then another voice—displaying impatience and efficiency—resolved the crisis.

“Let’s not waste time guys—for these two. There’s a bunch of them up the main road… near the mosque. Let’s go get’em.” 

There was instant agreement and the killing mob moved on. I was frozen to the shutters as I peered out and remember nothing more about the incident. My mother told me later that in fact our neighbors had hidden the hunted tenants in their puja room (Thakur ghor) where the tailors remained for a few days praying I suppose to their Allah—huddled together by the feet of Mother Kali and Lord Ganesh until a police van came to the neighborhood and picked them up.

Up the main road—Russa Road then—was that mosque where Muslims of the area prayed and congregated. Across the road from the mosque was Kalighat Park where we played football (soccer) on occasion and which we always had to cross to visit my parents’ friends: the poet Bishnu Dey and his wife Pranati Dey—an well-known educator. Their children were (and still are) very dear friends of mine. So I knew well the route to their house on Prince Gholam Mohammad Road, past the mosque and through the park. Sometime in the evening of that August day we heard something about a fire in the park. That’s when I sneaked out of our house and went to the Russa Road crossing, and that’s when I heard screams of children coming from the direction of Kalighat Park. These were screams of utter terror which I can still hear if I shut my eyes and think of where I stood that day. I was terrified myself and sprinted the forty odd yards back to our house and said nothing to anybody about my scary adventure. 

Ours was a house visited often by writers, journalists and politicos, so news came very quickly to my father and grandfather. What they were told is that after sunset, mobs from Kalighat and Chetla had stormed that mosque where women, children and the elderly had taken refuge. The huddled group must have been praying to their Allah, hoping that the sanctity of their place worship would save them. To the contrary, the mob burst into the mosque, herded out everyone they found, stabbed them and beat them at will. 

Meanwhile, across the street inside Kalighat Park the killers had built a bonfire. The horrible news that a couple of reporters brought to my grandfather was that the hunting party dragged several of their prey—mostly children—across the road into the park and tossed them like kindling into the bonfire. Some of the victims may have been dead already, but many were just beaten up. I realized that a few blocks north of the park, on a sidewalk off Russa Road I had stood for a minute, listening to the sounds of dying children. Children who must have been around my age. 

I tried to remember everyone I knew: friends and family, maids and servants, our postman, our laundryman, all the vendors that came  to our door… but I couldn’t think of anyone who would slaughter children. And yet something inside me began to question what there was beyond the goodwill and affection within which I was nestled and kept secure. Those people who had come searching for the Muslim tailors—some of them looked just like friends of my uncle and others like sons of our next door neighbor—doctor gramps to me. I was afraid more bad things would happen that week.   

Some of our neighbors were talking about those uncivilized Muslim brutes who had started the killings. They concluded that our thugs were only dishing out street justice—an eye for an eye. We seemed to have walked into the middle of an inferno. I mean, the whole damn country.

III

A few miles north-east of us was the area of Kolkata called Park Circus, flanking the main road Amir Ali Avenue. Off Amir Ali Avenue was Nasiruddin Road where in a second floor flat lived my aunt the actress Tripti Mitra (mother’s sister who was a part of our household until she got married) and her husband, actor and director Shombhu Mitra—well-known theatre people in the city who will come back to us later, after we reach the other side of darkness. 

In another part of Park Circus, in another street whose name I no longer remember, lived a more extended unit of our family. I do remember a first floor flat with a courtyard where I used to play with my cousins whose parents were my father’s sister and brother-in-law. My father’s dad and younger brother also lived there. 

On August 16, 1946 in Park Circus—a predominantly Muslim area—there descended a time of unspeakable terror on Hindu households, as Muslim mobs—mirror image of the hunters I had witnessed through the shutters—began looking for their neighbors to kill. Alongside the frenzied killers, Park Circus too had neighbors who cared for the living, people who were not willing to surrender their humanity to assassins. And so, while we waited to hear from Park Circus—while I listened to scattered conversations and saw veiled tears at home—there was a sense of inevitability about the fate of those others. Then when we did get the first news there was some measured relief.  

Ours was one of the few houses that had a telephone those days because my grandfather Satyen Majumdar was a prominent newspaper editor.  So we knew that if at all possible, our Park Circus relatives would call. Sure enough, my aunt Tripti and her husband Shombhu phoned us after they were safe. Possibly on August 17. They had hurried out of their apartment and were taken in by their neighbors the Masood family. Mr. Masood was a top-notch barrister, well respected in the city, and no one in the neighborhood would question his decision. We found out later that there was some yelling on Nasiruddin Road at the Masoods, but they lived in a fancy fourth floor flat, in a building well-guarded and gated. The mob mentality of Park Circus was no different from their counterparts in Kalighat. The killers went after the most vulnerable victims first. 

The other family cluster with my aunt, uncle and cousins did not fare as well. They were eventually rescued, but after many terrifying uncertain hours. And they lived because of the kindness and ingenuity of my uncle’s best friend. This young man—Kalim—knew some of the hoodlums who organized the lynch mob in the area. He went over to my uncle’s to warn them about what was to happen. He told the family to shut all doors and windows, close all shutters and curtains. He told everyone that their survival depended on making all potential killers believe this Hindu family had already left the neighborhood. Kalim insisted that there could be no sign or sound of cooking, cleaning, bathing, washing clothes or other chores. No lights could be turned on at anytime. The bathrooms had to be used sparingly, and without flushing the toilets. Kalim promised to bring over some food when he could—unseen, and he’d find out if there may be a way out of the neighborhood. 

Actually there did arrive a way out—eventually. After a couple of days of chaos and bloodshed, the civil administration and police—still under British rule of course—began to send vans with armed escort to the rioting areas of the city. The plan was fairly simple: to take Muslims out of Hindu neighborhoods, and Hindus out of Muslim areas and then leave them off in places where they would be safe. There was, however, a catch. The vans with loudspeakers announcing their arrival would stop only at large intersections—open areas from which the armed personnel could monitor the streets and buildings. It was up to the fleeing families to get to the vans. Under the watchful of the police and armed Gurkhas, to be sure—but nevertheless exposed to danger from resourceful assassins. 

I was told later that Tripti and Shombhu remained with the Masoods until order was restored in the city, while Kalim helped our other segment to a police van which finally brought grandpa Hiralal, aunt and uncle Badli and Tubey, uncle Khokon, and my cousins Monu, Monju and Babla to our house. But it hadn’t been smooth sailing for them . Their escape had begun in the middle of terror. 

My mother didn’t lie to me about such things and described that journey in some detail. What I remember is that Hiralal, my cousins and the uncles had moved quite briskly toward the van once they got out of the house. Kalim had provided the men and the boys with skull caps—the kind worn by Muslim men. Perhaps they hadn’t been noticed by the locals and reached the armed guards unaccosted. My aunt Badli was slower to move in her sari and probably very agitated too. Although she  was being escorted by Kalim, the two of them suddenly found themselves surrounded by a group of hunters, knives and swords in hand. Kalim remained calm and kept walking—arm in arm with Badli—toward the crossroad as he talked to the group.

“Who is this woman? I haven’t seen her with you before,” challenged one young man brandishing a dagger.

“Of course you haven’t. She is my cousin. Came to see my mom. Now with all this mess, she wants to get back to her husband and kids in Rajabajar. The van will take her there. You know that’s our area, right?”

They were near enough to the police van by then and the gang beat a quick retreat when it saw the Gurkha “riflemen” coming towards it. Thus Kalim saved the family, and he was not worried about retaliation by the hoodlums. No one would harass him in that part of Park Circus. 

My mother thought Kalim was an insane daredevil with no common sense because a few days later he suddenly appeared at our front door “disguised” as a laundryman! In other words, he came carrying a huge load of clothes—a bundle on his head and another in his arm and indeed no one marked him as a stranger—certainly not as a Muslim. To my mom he said that the escapees couldn’t bring any clothes and it would be tough for them to make a sudden change—specially for the kids. He wanted to be sure all was well. My mother’s fear was justified because although rampant killings across Kolkata had stopped by then, there were many incidents of sporadic violence, and Kalim could lose his life if someone on our street or even a visitor in our house realized he was a Muslim.  

IV

The distinction between Hindus and Muslims—marked with the signature “the two communities” during times of bloodshed by the various government agencies of the Indian subcontinent, and also by the press, has always troubled me, and many others like me, I’m sure. The “communities” have changed over time, as has their sense of themselves. Where they converged in my childhood there was very little religious alliance of any kind. You were a Hindu if you were born into a Hindu family and your name showed that. That was true of our Muslim friends as well. Sometimes I heard bantering about taboos which inevitably proved to be cultural rather than religious. I mean many irreligious Hindus avoided beef, and their Muslim friends wouldn’t eat pork. 

My personal case is even more amusing and relevant here, I think. My last name “Mitra” belongs to the caste of Bengali Kayasthas—descendants I was told of the sage Vishwamitra. I was a Mitra because my father Arun the revered poet and his ancestors were Mitras. But my mother Shanti was from a Brahmin family which naturally descended from a Brahmin sage. So Shanti actually married down the caste ladder. Not only that, the patriarchal scheme of the ancients (I have no idea how old) dictated that if a Brahmin man married a non-Brahmin woman, she would be uplifted spiritually and materially, and their children would Brahmins—the males twice-born. This type of union was called an “anulom” marriage-- along the grain so to speak.

On the other hand, if a Brahmin woman somehow ended up marrying a non-Brahmin man, it was not good at all. This was against all social norms and the children of such a marriage would be outcasts—in today’s  language “Dalits”. No way back to the caste structure for them. And this regrettable, against the grain union was called a “pratilom” marriage. But of course nobody ever sees me as an untouchable because, in this instance,  patrilineality comes to the rescue as I bear the family name of my father.

I put such an absurd rule into evidence because much of all bigotry is derived from such rules—on the ideological and ritual fronts. The children of Kalighat were victims of a lust for killing, not of doctrinal injunction. But underneath the expressed violence, was there not an even darker side where dehumanization of the victims becomes a necessary condition for any act of genocide? 

How do we make sub-humans and non-humans out of people from the past, present and the future? People we have read about, heard about, people we have met, witnessed and embraced, people we may meet another time, or simply imagine to exist somewhere? For this, there has to be a logical, social, linguistic shift—a decisive shift embodied by “us and them” of course, but kept alive every day through a slippery definition of “our people” versus “their people” and most successfully through the vicious “killing their own people” pitted against the virtuous killing of all those who are not “our own people.” 

This part of our history I’ll revisit soon, but next time I want to return to the dazzling light show put on by the most creative people I have ever witnessed within an incredible span of space and time. 

Today my last word will be that no one has the right to turn children into wisps of smoke.

© Gogol (Ranadhir Mitra), November, 2014