Cotton, Winter And Her

The vision is still as clear as glass in my memory.

It was a wintery cold morning in Strand Road Calcutta. The year was 1875 when Viceroy Lord Northbrook commanded his voice all over the Bengal — the people especially peasants from Calcutta suppressed under his rule.

Unlike us peasants who roomed in cloth-like cottages on the perimeter of streets, The viceroy resided in a lavish mansion which everyone called The Belvedere House. The mansion screamed Power, richness, and authority.

The British never gave away the chance to prove themselves superior to us Indians. This mansion was one of the ways. This was the first thought that entered my mind as I stood in front of the gates of it, slightly hiding behind my mother.

I was a young boy, precisely 16, dark-skinned, matted oily hair who owned only two pairs of clothes and a small bag and went to that only Bengali medium school.  soon the law had been established that the school had to be converted into an English medium, where the Britishers employed their teachers who and the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ verses as well as the sacred mantras which we chanted were now being replaced by the Missionary studies which taught us secularity and English literature, with philosophy and science.

This was widely resented by the majority of the population of Calcutta and my family was one of them. As soon as my father heard that my school had stopped instructing in Bengali and had been teaching everything in English, he immediately withdrew my name. When the reason was asked, he looked right into my eyes and replied “Your school is trying to promote Christianity, and that is not acceptable, we all rot in hell if we commit this type of sin” and walked away in anger.

So, I took up helping my mother look after the only cow we had remaining in the cowshed and 2 timid goats chewing grass and their eyes showing laziness. My dad being the milkman who used to serve half of Calcutta, fresh cow milk now was forced to deliver milk to the dingy bakery that the Britishers had opened. He barely earned. Having one cow we couldn’t provide milk to the bakery as well as the half of Calcutta. It was now only two houses that bought the least measurement of milk and the bakery that took the majority of it, on some days all of it.

My mother was forced to grow cotton on our farm. We used to have farms of corn, wheat, and several vegetables with orchards of fruits. The British took all of it away.

Our wheat and corn were cut and taken away, and our fruits and vegetables which we sold in the Bazaar down the street were now replaced by cotton. Every nook and cranny of our farm now had cotton springing up. Once the cotton was gentle, soft, and completely evolved, we cut it neatly and took it once in four months to the Belvedere House, where we showed our farmer’s ID to the security standing in red and black uniforms. It often astonished me that the security was just as smart and enlightened as the British Higher Authorities, unlike the Indian security who sat around with disinterest written on their face and not as well educated as the upper-class Indians.

The security looked at the farmer’s ID that my mom showed him, shivering under her shawl, and her fingers blue with the extreme cold wind that ran everywhere.

The guard looked at the ID then at our faces and solemnly nodded opening the gate for us, we entered. It had a beautiful garden with different types of orchids and flora blossoming there, plucking of flowers or entering the garden by any member except the British officers and workers was strictly forbidden. We walked straight carrying three bamboo baskets containing the purest and whitest cotton from the lot of our farm. we entered the main Hall, where we sat in front of the British Inspectors and laid our baskets of cotton.

The hall was quite spacious and adorned with top-notch architecture. A huge sparkling Chandelier hung above the light pink ceiling making the ambience rich and boastful.

Though the hall had leather chairs with golden color borders, We were made to kneel in front of the inspectors as they scrutinized every piece of cotton.

I was curiously looking around and scanning the magnificent hall when my eyes stopped on a girl. She looked precisely fifteen or sixteen, I don’t know, her skin was white, glowing, and fairly oily. She was as beautiful as the moon’s light. She looked like Winter herself, as pleasant as dew drops shining in her light blue eyes. I was admiring her delicate carved beauty and failed to realize that those same light blue eyes were gazing into mine, and then she did something unexpected, she smiled slowly with her eyes squeezing into her cheeks. She reminded me of those fair dolls which are sold at the yearly fairs for a costly price. I was so lost and managed to give back a crooked smile. The police inspector came towards the basket I was carrying and looking at the black massive legs, I quickly looked up to meet his gaze. He took almost ten minutes to carefully examine the cotton of my basket and for straight ten minutes I looked at his stern bearded intimidating face. He then took the baskets and passed them on to a man beside him who sent them to the storeroom. The girl was nowhere to be seen, and I silently started walking along with my mother toward the exit, as we were moving down the stairs I felt a tug at my hand and there she stood, the beautiful young lass, she quickly put a piece of thin white paper in my curved palm and ran back brushing past me. I was too amazed and puzzled at the same time to respond, it took me two minutes to process what happened and I quickly tugged the paper in my pajama pocket as my mother angrily looked at the girl till she had disappeared into the Mansion.

As we got into one of the rickshaws parked outside the mansion, my mother said to me in a hushed but annoyed voice “These British girls, I don’t understand what they think of themselves, she pushed you and ran inside that big mansion, without any apology, these people have no mannerisms, Let God punish these Britishers for this and show them their right place huh!” and dozed off quietly.

I slowly opened the piece of paper from my dusty pajama pocket, but couldn’t understand a single word. The words looked beautifully penned, I assume there were five words but I would never be able to read them, because they were written in a language foreign to me, a language called- English.

All I did was re-tuck the paper where it was before,

Experiencing my first love as well as my first heartbreak at the same moment.

Perplexity hit me, all I did was close my eyes lay my head on my mother’s shoulder, and go to sleep.