1. The House of the Ghoshals

The river lay ahead. A blue current. A densely-wooded hill sloped upwards on the left. A boy of thirteen or fourteen lay on the ground, surrounded by a group of primitive naked men and women. Only one of them was dressed in a furry deerskin. The boy was foaming at the mouth, his eyes whirling in a frenzy, his body shaking uncontrollably. The man covered from head to toe in deerskin had two antlers on his head. His face resembled an ape’s, and he even had a tail of a fox attached to his buttocks. This strangely attired man stood out from all the others. Suddenly he began dancing in a circle around the boy, waving a branch from a tree. His lips moved at intervals, uttering unintelligible words—incantations, perhaps. At the same time he kept touching the body of the boy with the branch. Abruptly he stopped. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he howled at the sky, aaaayeeee. Another figure in deerskin materialized next to him. His eyes were red, and he was carrying a leather case, which he opened to reveal a set of sharpened stones. Choosing a flat, knife-edged one, he turned it round and round in his hands, examining it carefully. Handing the case to the other man in the deerskin, he stepped confidently up to the boy, who was lying on the ground, all but dead. Planting one foot on either side of him, the man surveyed him with bloodshot eyes, taking stock of the situation. Suddenly leaping forward and planting himself on the boy’s chest, he sliced off a portion of the skin on the right side of the boy’s scalp at lightning speed with his stone implement. As soon as he peeled the skin away, the skull presented itself like white ice. Now the man in the deerskin chose a thicker, sharper stone and swiftly cut open a circle in the skull, removing the disc. Blood flowed freely from the wound, while the boy screamed at the top of his voice, his body convulsing in pain. Several naked men and women were holding him down firmly. The boy’s screams echoed through the mountain ranges, flying across the rough terrain spreading from one forest to the next. The other tribes in the mountains, as well as every animal and bird in the area, tried to locate the source of the sound. Three of the four women who had emerged from a cave nearby glanced at the scene before proceeding, unperturbed, towards the river. Without warning there was the sound of wild drumbeats.

Dwarikanath woke up with a start. He had this dream frequently, not exactly in the same form, but recurring in different versions. Sometimes the boy lay alone on the riverbank, the wound in his head bleeding uncontrollably. A fire blazed nearly. Suddenly a hairy human would appear from nowhere to pick a thin branch out of the flames and rub it against the wound, which closed immediately as the blood burned and clotted. It wasn’t dawn yet, and the air in the room was chilly. He didn’t feel inclined to abandon the comfort of his bed.

Kuuuooooooor ghotitawlaaaaaaa… Dwarika’s drowsiness was dispelled at once. Sahadeb’s cry meant the sun would be rising soon. The first birds were heard calling indistinctly, the fidgety ones among them flapping their wings. These were the sounds that conveyed the hour of day in Calcutta. The guns would go off at the fort in the maidan at first light, with a second round at one in the afternoon, and a third at nine at night. This would meet with an ecstatic response from Baiju and Beni, the two Hindustani gatemen—bomkali kalkattawali.

Dwarikanath jumped out of bed and looked out the window. The fog was a muslin veil, spreading across the earth like chloroform seeping into the air.

It was light by the time he had finished washing his face and hands in the tiny bathroom on the first floor. The small room facing north was Dwarika’s dining room, where he occasionally had a drink, all by himself. The first guns went off as he was polishing off the bananas, guavas, and sweets laid out for him on a plate. Going into the library, he was greeted by rows of bookshelves—stacked storehouses of knowledge gazing at him in unblinking silence.

They wanted nothing from him, only seeking to give of themselves selflessly, desirous only of his company. Dwarika felt the soothing touch of their comfort in his heart. He ran his hands across their spines, then reached out for the skeleton suspended from a hook.  The human frame swayed ever so slightly. Then he went to his desk to change the date on the calendar. It was Wednesday, 16 January 1884. A memorable day. He had to be at the Medical College lecture hall on time.

The door to the next room was shut, for no one lived in it, but the door to Sureshwari’s room was wide open. She wasn’t there. Her personal maid, Mokkhada, was making her bed. Sureshwari usually woke up before sunrise, going downstairs and rousing the household staff to get them started on the day. How else was Dwarika to reach the hospital on time?

Dwarika took the north staircase downstairs. He was reminded of his dream once more. But then everything that had taken place before today also seemed like a dream. He was sixteen when he passed the entrance examination to the Calcutta Medical College. But the aristocratic Ghoshal family of Kidderpore was exceedingly conservative. It had been a while since Madhusudan Gupta had been the first to dissect a corpse with a view to enabling students to overcome their mental block against handling the dead. But for the family the dark ages had not ended even forty years later. Studying medicine meant handling the dead bodies of people of all castes, which made it hard to secure their permission to study medicine. Still Dwarika had expressed his desire to his father to be a doctor. Not only was Ramkanta Ghoshal, the head of the family, incredibly orthodox, short-tempered, and inflexible, but there was also the malicious advice of his young second wife to contend with. His eyes bulging out, he had said, ‘How can a student of Harinath Nayaratna’s primary school harbour such a heretical idea?’ Permission was not given. Dwarika, who had lost his mother in his childhood, was not superstitious like his father, but he was a match for Ramkanta when it came to angry, obdurate determination. He would study medicine, come what may. ‘I shall disown you in that case,’ his father had announced that night.

Lowering his eyes, the son had said, ‘So be it, but still I must study medicine.’ Ramkanta’s fair-skinned face was red now. His suddenly cruel eyes boring into Dwarika, he said viciously, ‘Not another word, get out of this house tomorrow morning…’ and left. Dwarika would have left that very night, but his father’s sister, Sureshwari, had prevented him from doing so. A child widow, she had been married at a time when an average of thirty Brahmins from the highest subcaste married some two thousand one hundred women in Hooghly district every year. Her nephew was the only person in this lifeless mansion she could talk to. That very night she had attempted to pass on some money and two gold ornaments in secret to Dwarika.

Leave alone the ornaments, Dwarika was hesitant even to accept the money. Touching his cheek, Sureshwari had said, ‘This jewellery, it’s from your grandfather, and the money, it’s from your uncle…now that he’s left me and gone, what will I do with it… You’d better take it…it’ll come in useful…you must study hard and be famous…like Doctor Goodeve.’

At this Dwarika had held out his hand humbly, taking the money but not the ornaments. ‘Let those be,’ he had said with a smile, ‘keep them for yourself…you can always sell them if you’re in trouble.’ His aunt had smiled too. ‘Take your widowed aunt away from here when you become a top doctor, all my troubles will be over…’

Dwarika had only ten rupees left after using this money for his admission fee. Uncertainty loomed large over him. A wealthy and well-known businessman called Edward John Smith had been surprised to see the handsome young man, who looked gloomy and had possibly been starving, sitting with his back propped up against the water trough for horses, near the entrance to the Medical College. The scene resembled a painting.

Going up to Dwarika, Smith had asked, ‘What’s the matter, my son? Why are you so sad?’ Dwarika had jumped to his feet, and Smith had patted his back sympathetically. He hadn’t broken down, but his voice had choked as he recounted his story—his eyes must have misted over too. The Englishman had taken him at once to his enormous rented house on Free School Street. Given him shelter in one of the large rooms in his house. Dwarika got a new lease of life.

The childless Smiths never held back their affection for him. Rosemary Smith would scold him like a mother, but she would also smother him with love.

The Englishman’s father had been an indigo trader. When this business slowed to a trickle, Smith turned to exporting tea, sugar, silk and, later, jute. His credo was that if you were intelligent enough you could become a millionaire even selling water. ‘Do you know the profit American businessman Frederic Tudor made from despatching ice from Boston to Calcutta?’ Smith’s blue eyes danced as he whistled.

‘Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Not bad, eh?’ He laughed.

‘Intelligence, you know, that’s all there is to it.’

Like business, he claimed to understand people well too. After two glasses of sherry, he would put his arm around Dwarika and tell his wife, ‘Mark my words, Rosie, this boy will climb to the top.’

The Smiths were Protestants. They went to church every Sunday. Dwarika would accompany them, although they had never insisted that he do so. Sometimes it was to the Old or Mission Church, known as the Red Church, and at other times, St John’s. That was where Dwarika heard pipe organ music for the first time. Just like an inkdrop instantly soaking into a sheet of blotting paper, the cadence of the glorious divine music slipped through his pores into his veins. His body thrilled to the diminuendos and crescendos. That was the first time that Dwarika had had the opportunity to marvel at the power of music, how it could make a slave of a man. He began to visit St John’s Church regularly just to hear the organ. And he wondered often what might happen if his father were to change his mind and despatch someone to the Smiths to bring him back home. Would Dwarika abandon his benefactors? Never. Mrs Smith did tell him over and over again to go back to his father, and Smith supported her, but he knew they were just saying it. Both of them would be hurt beyond belief if he left.

Dwarika decided to convert to Christianity without anyone urging or provoking him to do so. He was now nominally a Protestant Christian like the Smiths. He did not believe in god, but, just in case Ramkanta had a change of heart, he had made sure that the road to returning home was now blocked forever.

From his third year in college onwards, Dwarika began to examine patients for a fee of four rupees. This not only paid for his expenses but also left him with money to spare. Mrs Smith approved greatly of this self-reliance, and Smith was, in any case, enamoured of everything Dwarikanath did.

Then came his medical degree. He graduated with the highest honours—two gold medals. Delirious with joy at his performance, Dwarika went to G. F. Kellner and Co. at Esplanade East the same day. The Smiths loved their sherry, so Dwarika bought a crate of Manzanilla, a mature dry sherry, for a full thirty-two rupees. Mrs Smith scolded him when she saw the twenty-four bottles, saying he really shouldn’t have spent so much money. But then she hugged him, and said, ‘You’re wonderful, Dooarik.’ They had a delightful time that evening, with Smith alone finishing off five of the small bottles, and Mrs Smith keeping pace. Dwarika had to drink a glass of sherry too at their request. And then the Smiths began dancing uninhibitedly.

Such joyous singing and dancing took place at their house on one more occasion besides Christmas—on 15 October or, sometimes, 15 November, the date of an annual reunion of the Europeans who lived in Calcutta. Smith had explained its history to Dwarika. There was a time when Calcutta lived in constant fear of deadly diseases—a serious illness usually meant death. Patients went to hospital in the hope of being cured, but very few of them returned home. Nor was there any way of assuring oneself that someone who was alive today would be alive tomorrow. That was why this annual celebration was held, for the survivors to meet one another. Perhaps they counted their numbers to calculate how many more had been consigned to their graves. Those who continued to be alive in this disease beleaguered city probably told themselves, ‘Thank the Lord for one more year.’ And then they gave themselves up to the joy of being alive. Although medical science had improved greatly since those days, the Europeans in the city continued to observe the old ritual.

The Smiths had taught Dwarika a great deal. Smith was inclined towards history—in particular, European history. He would often tell unusual stories about the people of Europe. One day he showed Dwarika a painting in a book. A corpse, surrounded by young doctors, whose teacher was explaining something about the arm muscles after dissection. The dead body had been painted accurately, while curiosity and the amazement of discovery were captured effectively in the expressions on the young faces. Dwarika was entranced. ‘Brilliant!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who is the artist?’

‘Rembrandt,’ said Smith with a smile. ‘He painted this on the instruction of his dissection teacher, Nicolaes Tulp…you see the teacher in the painting? That is Tulp.’

‘Outstanding…’

‘Yes, indeed… I marvel at it too.’

Dwarika remembered the other thing that Smith had told him about the painting.

‘Do you notice, Dooarik, none of the people are standing stiffly like expressionless wooden puppets…they all look alive. And do not forget Rembrandt was only twenty-five when he painted this.’

Smith had also told him about Leonardo da Vinci. Well-built, handsome, with flowing golden hair, Leonardo would visit the market in Florence in his all-red attire, buy a cage full of colourful birds and gaze at them for some time. Then he would unlock the cage and set them free, after which he would fill his notebooks with sketches of the birds in flight, capturing them in intricate detail. He wouldn’t pause till he had perfected the drawings. It was this same curiosity that had propelled Leonardo da Vinci to dissect not one or two but thirty corpses and make accurate drawings of bones, the circulation of blood, and the working of the muscles. The strange thing though was that no one had found these drawings immediately after his death—the treasure trove was discovered over two hundred and fifty years later, in 1784.

Smith’s interest in the past included the history of medicine too. As long back as in the year 160 or 170 CE, he told Dwarika, Galen used to teach anatomy by dissecting the carcasses of monkeys, goats, and pigs, setting off a practice that continued for a long time. Nearly thirteen hundred years had passed before Andreas Vesalius started dissecting corpses to begin the study of human anatomy. The person who dissected thousands of dead bodies to identify and understand their mechanism was John Hunter. The Herculean task that the surgeon had undertaken from 1748 onwards was unparalleled.

According to Smith, today’s doctors were the beneficiaries of the hard work put in by these path-breakers. ‘Always remember their dedication, Dooarik. It might make you nauseous. You may be afraid of the company of the dead in the dark. But still you have to be patient; you must not give up the practice of dissection. You can be a brilliant doctor only if you can unravel the inner mysteries of the body, not otherwise.’ Smith had said this partly to himself, but Dwarika had not forgotten his advice, which was why Dr Dwarikanath Ghoshal still performed dissections regularly.

Mrs Smith had taught him European etiquette. The favourite drinks of Europeans at the time she came to Calcutta were wine, cider, and sherry.

‘How everyone drank. Each of them was a giant vat.’ She would laugh as she said, ‘The gentlemen of Calcutta drank at least three or four bottles of port after dinner, at five rupees each. And if they were posted outside the city in the mofussil, there was no holding back at all…nothing less than a dozen bottles of country liquor would do for Her Majesty’s servants. And then liver disease, hospital, and finally, for most of them…’ Mrs Smith didn’t finish, but Dwarika had no trouble filling in the blanks. Not only was he old enough, he had also treated such patients at the Medical College.

It was at this time that he met the Armenian Walter Gregory in the Free School area. Thanks to his patronage, Dwarikanath went to London to study for an MD. When he returned with his degree to Calcutta, it was to be greeted with news he could barely bear—Mrs Smith had died of influenza only a fortnight earlier. Putting his arms around Smith, Dwarika had wept like a baby. ‘I have lost my mother once again…’ he kept saying.

Smith remained in Calcutta for just another month, using the time to sell or distribute his business and property. Giving Dwarika a substantial amount of money and some shares of mercantile companies as gifts, he declared he wanted to return home as quickly as possible. On the day of his departure he entrusted his favourite brougham carriage, the Arabian stallion Marriot who drew it, and the groom and driver of the carriage Maijuddin to Dwarika, telling him, ‘Look after them.’

Dwarikanath had used part of the money to buy this house and land in Beliaghata. The area was flourishing now, with train services to Canning having begun recently. He had moved out of the Free School Street house as soon as possible after buying this one. It was impossible to stay on in a place where Mrs Smith’s memories pervaded every corner. After moving to Beliaghata he had fetched Sureshwari from the family house in Hatgobindopur. The house resonated with voices and conversation after her arrival, a lively environment despite the lack of occupants. The former child widow seemed to have ten arms as she managed everything all by herself.

Dulalchand Seth, from whom Dwarikanath had bought the house, had had his evening pleasure palace built in conformance with the rules of Hindu vaastu.

Ducks to the east

Bamboo to the west

Areca to the north

Open to the south

Following these rules, there was a pond on the eastern side, to which Sureshwari had added six swans and four ducks. A bamboo grove stood in the west, shielding the inhabitants from the glare of the sun. The north was lined, as a matter of practice, by areca nut trees, meant to provide protection from the cold winds of history. As for the south, it was open, as tradition demanded—that was where the front door and veranda were.

Dwarika’s chamber was in a corner of the house on the southern side, where he examined his patients. The abandoned room along the wall to the north-west had been turned into an autopsy chamber.

In the north-east was the cowshed, new and quite large. Sitaram was now engaged in attending to the cows. ‘Here, Shyama…my sweet child…come have your bath, my treasure…and then eat…’ The rope used to truss up her hind legs during milking was lying near her feet. Not too far away from the blue-black Shyama stood the off-white Dhoboli who, until recently, parted with two seers of milk every morning and a seer-and-a-half in the evening. But with the quantity of milk having dropped, she no longer got the care she was used to. Shyama was giving three seers of thick milk in the morning and two-and-a-half in the evening—therefore she was treated with far greater affection. Dwarikanath had noticed that she was often given delicacies like chaff, fragments of grain, and jaggery. This was perhaps the principle on which the world ran, you were considered capable, magnificent, even unique, so long as you were delivering something, so long as you were able to deliver. Once you stopped delivering, all the love came to an end. Your days are over, my darling. Whether you’re a doctor or a milch cow, all relationships are governed by the same rule.

Dwarikanath was a trifle irked and felt sorry for Dhoboli.

‘Sitaram…’

No response. Probably a little hard of hearing. Dwarika spoke louder.

‘O Sitaram…’

Now the diminutive, dark-skinned man jumped to his feet, touching his forehead with his hand to convey respect.

‘Ram ram, shaheb.’

Water was dripping from his body, and drops of water glistened on his face too.

‘Don’t neglect Dhoboli.’

Now that he had conveyed his irritation, the dark look on Dwarika’s face was replaced by an amiable expression, which possibly reassured Sitaram.

‘Of course, shaheb, of course,’ he said quickly, caressing Dhoboli perfunctorily.

Sitaram raised his hand to his forehead once more. A pile of dry leaves had been gathered on the ground near the post to which the cows were tethered. A fire was lit with them in the evening so that the smoke could keep mosquitoes and other insects at bay. Quickly surveying the trough nearby, stuffed with feed, Dwarika walked towards the pond.

The ducks and swans were in the water, dipping their beaks beneath the surface occasionally. Sureshwari’s private desires were being fulfilled. How graceful the swans’ necks were! There was fish in this pond. Most of them were small, but there were some larger carp as well. A cormorant had joined forces with the ducks and swans to hunt for fish.

After watching the activity in the water for some time from the steps leading down to the pond, Dwarika turned his eyes westwards. A low wall stood some twenty-five feet away. He was familiar with the layout across the wall, where there were two large tanks of water in a bathroom without a roof. This was where Dwarika bathed, as did some of the women in the house, while the rest went to the pond. On one side of the bathroom was a draw-well, whose water was used to fill the tanks. There were two other wells too, one in the inner yard, and the other next to the kitchen. The entrance to the bathroom facing the pond should be closed now.

But Dwarika observed that it wasn’t exactly closed—the two halves of the door were merely touching each other, which meant that it had not been barred. Why not?

‘Impossible, how can you ask for six paise to do something like this? Not a paise more than four…’

‘What are you saying, thakrun! Do you know how deep this well is? And then all that mud at the bottom…fishing the keys out of the mud can’t cost less than six paise, ma jononi.’

The first of the two voices wafting over the wall belonged to Sureshwari. The owner of the second, high but silken, was Sahadeb. The haggling was in full swing.

‘Go away, don’t lie. You think six paise comes cheap…don’t try to take advantage. I can turum you in an instant.’

Sureshwari sounded agitated. The person to whom the threat had been issued had no idea what being turumed might mean. It was doubtful whether the speaker knew either. The turum was the hole in the sacrificial stake through which the victim’s head was thrust, making it impossible for them to move, like a goat about to be slaughtered. The criminal’s hands would be tied, and they would have to stand for hours this way, facing the public, the more aggressive among whom would curse and spit at them, a few going so far as to hurl rotten eggs or even stones. Of course, this particular form of punishment by pillory had been abolished at least forty years before Sureshwari’s birth, but the word was useful to make people like Sahadeb cower in submission.

After a few minutes’ nonplussed silence he spoke again.

‘Think it over, ma thakrun. I have a wife and children to feed…and then I just heard from back home, my poor old father is sick. It’s a fair price…’

‘You need to think about whether it’s fair or unfair.’

Both their voices had softened now.

Smiling to himself, Dwarika turned to the south.

It was a familiar scene which had been repeated many times.  They would finally settle on five paise. The ghotitola would remove the rag flung across his shoulder, take off his dhoti, wrap a homespun towel around his waist, and hold out his cupped left hand. Sureshwari  would put a few drops of mustard oil in the lamp-like receptacle of his palm, saying, ‘No one knows how the good days go by…but the days of misery, they’re like pits of darkness…endless and bottomless…’ or some such aphorism.

Sahadeb would climb down the inner wall of the draw-well and dip into the water at the bottom, surfacing a minute or so later for the benefit of several pairs of eager eyes. A muted cheer would break out among the audience. When he climbed back, dripping wet, Sureshwari would walk to the kitchen with the retrieved keys, saying, ‘See me before you go, Sahadeb.’ She would eventually pay the full six paise, besides giving him gur-muri. Sahadeb would touch her feet reverently after his jaggery and puffed rice snack and leave.

To the south was the front door and, above it, an overhanging balcony, beneath which was a palanquin, at the moment resting on the ground. The benefit of a palanquin was that it gave the household four additional workers. When they were not carrying the palanquins they could help with tasks like chopping firewood for the cooking or fetching water from the well. Walking westwards from the front door brought Dwarika to his chamber for examining patients, beyond which lay the stable, near the edge of the property. Anwar, Maijuddin’s son, was massaging Marriot there. The morning sunbeams slid off the glistening brown skin of the Arabian horse, who had his halter and saddle off. Anwar was powerfully built, the muscles in his back—the trapezius, rhomboideus major, deltoids—rippling rhythmically as he moved.

Dwarika was enjoying the sight. ‘Arre Anwar. You’ve become an expert.’ The young man blushed, probably embarrassed at being praised in his father’s presence. Dwarika turned to Maijuddin, who was looking at him. ‘You’ve trained your son very well, chacha, he’s become as proficient as you.’ Maijuddin offered him a salaam. ‘Khuda is merciful,’ he said, his long white beard flowing in the breeze. Dwarika had wanted to buy a four-in-hand carriage—even a two-horse one would do. But Maijuddin had suggested waiting for some time, averring that topnotch horses were not available right now. He would inform Dwarikanath as soon as they were. Dwarika agreed. His attention was drawn by a knocking to his right. Turning, he saw woodpeckers busy pecking holes in the trunk of an almond tree. Everyone was hungry in the morning.

Dwarika was ten minutes late by the time he arrived at the autopsy room. This annoyed him. The fact was that he was overwhelmed by the sight of horses, their form and movement distracted him terribly.

‘Everything is ready,’ said Damu.

Damu was Damodar Mandal, the supplier of corpses for dissection, easily identifiable by a long scar on his right cheek. Damu was usually accompanied by Dhania, two of whose upper teeth were broken. Both of them knew that Daktar moshai, as they called him, fiddled around with the machinery inside human bodies. It was to them that he explained things while he did this. After it was all done, the sliced and mutilated body’s final destination was a graveyard or a crematorium. The doctor’s assistants performed this task with the help of blue-uniformed keepers of the law. From the gateman to the policeman, everyone’s palm was greased with amounts ranging from four to six annas. There was no choice, for most of the corpses came through labyrinthine routes. Not all bodies were unclaimed, after all.

Dwarikanath had no compunctions about his sourcing arrangements—after all, the same method was followed in Britain. Dissection was essential to learn or to teach, this was the rule at medical colleges. But back in those days there was no simple way to find corpses, so they had to be stolen. A new breed of professionals had sprung up in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and Dublin, with different names—bodysnatchers, resurrectionists, sackthem-up men. British law was peculiar. The punishment for stealing from graves was light, a month in gaol at most, but stealing even an inch of clothing from a dead body was a heinous crime that could lead to seven years of exile. Despite these risks, however, corpses were pilfered in the thousands. The well-known teachers of the past who taught anatomy had themselves stolen dead bodies. Andreas Vesalius had done it; the surgeon Robert Liston had done it too. John Hunter must have purchased thousands of corpses from thieves. And now Dwarikanath of Beliaghata was dependent for his dead bodies  on Damu and Dhania from Dompara, where those who disposed of corpses lived.

There was a new face next to Damu in the autopsy room today. ‘This is Panchu,’ said Damu, ‘I’m going on holiday…’

Dwarika recalled Damu saying he was going home for a month.  He was leaving Panchu as a replacement. Dwarika took the new man in carefully. His appearance resembled a worm-infested bamboo pole sporting a thick handlebar moustache. This annoyed Dwarika, who preferred people to be clean-shaven. Besides, gentlemen didn’t allow their servants to grow moustaches, for they did not like their hirelings to have whiskers that moved up and down when talking.  The servants of Calcutta had conducted a meeting recently where they had decided to appeal to their employers for permission to grow moustaches, and had presented a petition to that effect. But their appeal had been turned down. As for this man, he had not only a moustache but also what was known as an Albert cut—the hairstyle adopted by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, with a parting on the left and puffed up hair on the sides. Some members of the city’s nouveau riche affected this style, as Dwarika had seen when younger. This rogue had adopted it too.

‘Sir, it was Panchu who brought this corpse…he can do it…’ Damu tried to assure Dwarika, whose expression immediately told him why Daktar moshai was looking disapproving.

‘Ey, Panchu, listen…you’ll have to get rid of that moustache if you want to work here.’

Panchu aka Panchanan the corpse-disposer immediately nodded in agreement.

Relieved, Dwarika turned to the corpse laid out on the high ironbed. A male body, ashen and bloodless, skeletal. About forty years old. Bloodstains near the lips and the nose, the red blood dried to a deep maroon by now. A small wound near the shoulder. Lying motionless like a spent wind-up doll.

At a signal from Dwarika, Damu and Dhania sliced open the body swiftly from the throat to below the navel. At once a bubbling reddish liquid came out.  Dwarikanath parted the peritonium, the thin net-like skin covering the abdominal cavity. The interiors of the corpse were uncovered now. The ash-coloured lungs were visible. So were the liver, about five pounds in weight, the blackish maroon spleen, and the dark green bile duct. Using a scalpel and a slim pair of tongs, the doctor removed the pericardium—the slim covering over the heart—to expose the blood-red organ. The red would start darkening to the colour of ink in some time. The kidney was off-white. The man had never got to know what the colours of his internal organs were. The lungs, heart, windpipe, oesophagus, trachea, intestines, stomach, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, urinary tract…all lying serenely and dispassionately, like Beliaghata’s roads in the dead of night. The only difference was that not a dog was barking, and no drunkards or watchmen could be heard.

Dwarikanath smiled to himself at the sight of the pallid stomach,  glancing in turn at Damu, Dhania, and Panchu. The working of the human body was unique; explaining its inner mysteries gave him great joy, no matter who the listeners were.

‘The distance travelled by food from the mouth to the anus is some thirty-two feet. Digestion begins with chewing. The masticated food flows down the oesophagus to the stomach, where digestive juices mix with it to turn it into mush. Now the stomach walls will suck out the proteins, fats, carbohydrates, water, and other essential components.’

Damu and Dhania listened in silence to the torrent of words from the doctor. They were familiar with this habit of Dwarikanath’s, where he kept speaking to them as though they understood everything, pointing out the different organs and punctuating his lecture with ‘well-are-you-getting-it’, and continuing without waiting for confirmation. It wasn’t as though they understood nothing at all, for all these years of listening had taught them a good deal. But the real excitement came at the end, when Daktar moshai worked out the cause of death. Imagine being able to tell this just by examining a corpse! Damu and Dhania found all this a remarkable business. They liked getting this surprise over and over again. Being new, Panchu was nodding as he listened carefully to this account of the machinery of the human body. Suddenly he said, ‘Aari chhokka! All that rice we put away…all that shit gets into this tiny sack…’

Dwarika paused. Damu and Dhania were terrified, especially Damu. Shaheb had approved of his holiday only after he had produced Panchu as a replacement. But no, now he’d never be allowed to go. Daktar moshai’s palm would land with explosive force on Panchu’s cheek. Damu shut his eyes in apprehension. But far from being enraged, Dwarika smiled—an indulgent smile.

‘Just like a tiny balloon expands when filled with air, the human stomach also expands when filled with food. You follow me?’

‘Got it…just like a snake after it has eaten a fat frog…the stomach swells the same way after eating.’

Paying no attention, Dwarika continued, as though speaking to himself, ‘Our stomachs are quite large, whereas the English have a stomach the size of this heart. That’s because what we eat in two meals is much more than they do in five of theirs, you know.’

He began to identify the organs in the lower half of the body for Panchu. ‘Look, here’s the ascending colon…the transverse colon… the descending colon…’

Dhania couldn’t contain himself any longer, he was impatient for the climax. The real magic came in the last act—‘But how did he die?’

Dwarikanath was speaking without really applying his mind all this while. Now his alertness returned at Dhania’s question, and he examined the dead man’s interior carefully. The lymph glands were enlarged at the spot in the middle of the chest where the trachea bifurcated to enter the two lungs. Dwarika tested the lymph nodes gingerly with a pair of thin tongs. The webbing of the left trachea was saturated in blood, solid clots that had turned the trachea black. ‘So much blood…’ the doctor murmured. ‘Not just blood but also pus…’

Damu, Dhania, and Panchu, all three of them were trying to identify the cause of death. They leaned forward for a closer look at the dead man’s lungs on being told of the blood.

‘Yes, that is blood…’ said Panchu.

Damu nodded.

‘What did he die of?’ Dhania repeated his question.

Instead of answering him, Dwarika looked at Panchu. ‘Where did you find this body?’ he asked.

This was not a question Dwarika normally asked. The corpse suppliers were not supposed to be asked questions they might find awkward to answer; it was an unwritten rule. But Dwarika was curious today, for he was eager to know which part of the city had been afflicted by this fatal illness.

‘It was lying on the road in Chitpur,’ Panchu answered brightly. ‘Seemed to have died only a little while ago, so I brought it here.’

Dwarika glanced at the face of the corpse once more. He seemed to have been come to the city from a village.

Dwarika turned to Damu. ‘Consumption,’ he said, nodding.

Not understanding, Damu asked, ‘Something to do with the lungs?’

‘Hmm…he was suffering from it for a long time.’

But what had actually caused death to visit him? An incision in the left lung brought forth a gust of air with reddish foam. The lungs were surrounded by tubercles which had proliferated to perforate the organ in a thousand places. It was like a shawl in which worms had eaten thousands of holes. The number of perforations was higher in the upper half. No doubt about it, this was tuberculosis. The cause of death became evident at once. The perforations had spread to a medium-sized artery, and at once blood had spurted out unchecked.  Perhaps that was all the blood the man had left.

An incision in the right lung yielded the same picture. Nudging the pleura with his tongs, Dwarika discovered it riddled with small marks and countless white dots, all of them signs of consumption.

He lost interest once he had identified the cause, washing his hands carefully with carbolic lotion, like he did every day. Then he said, ‘All of you must wash your hands properly with this solution. I’m going to the bathroom.’

No matter what names Dwarika used for different rooms, to everyone else there were three sections in the house—the zindakhana, the dawakhana, and the murdakhana—the areas for the living, for the treatment of the ill, and for the dead. They knew that this mad doctor would come out of the zindakhana every morning, circle the house from the outside and enter the murdakhana, taking a bath before returning to the zindakhana. Then, after eating and dressing, he would pay a visit to the dawakhana before leaving for the hospital.

A small jar containing water from the Ganga was kept on a low stool next to the bathroom. Dwarika had to sit on the stool and douse himself with the water; he had no choice but to comply with Sureshwari’s order. She was stern and inflexible about this.  And besides, she had uncomplainingly accepted all of Dwarikanath’s wayward habits, including the one of going to church on Sundays. So he let her have her way with this one.

Like every day, Sureshwari was ready with his food by the time he got to the dining room after his bath. Dwarika glanced at his pocket watch again as he ate; he seemed to have made up for lost time. He couldn’t be late arriving at the Medical College, he had to be punctual today.

A remarkable event was about to take place today. Dwarikanath had had a long association with the Calcutta Medical Society, the convenors of today’s meeting. He had been involved with them from their very first meeting on 21 January 1880. That was the year the practice of disinfecting the operation theatre and the patients’  rooms with carbolic acid ad begun. It had not been a simple accomplishment. The wards used to be scoured and cleaned with McDougall’s disinfecting powder, as the rules demanded. But was this enough to disinfect them thoroughly? The question had come from Dr Kenneth McLeod, who had said that patients were dying of infection and fever after surgery for this very reason. He had been to England recently to personally learn from Joseph Lister how to perform surgery in a sterile environment. He wanted to institute the same system in this hospital to reduce the number of post-surgery fatalities. But the other surgeon at the hospital, O. C. Raye, was opposed to the idea. He believed that keeping the patients’ rooms clean and using purified water would ensure there would be no pus in the wounds. Dwarikanath had mentally voted in favour of carbolic acid at the time, for Joseph Lister’s suggestion had both logic and evidence on its side. He had even conveyed this to McLeod in private. Since unfounded speculation could not compete with proof, the use of carbolic lotion was instituted in the Medical College.

Sureshwari was supervising Dwarika’s meal as noisily as she always did. ‘Don’t you touch the stale rice…take some more pumpkin…you there, get some of that milk I just boiled…’ Dwarika ate absently, out of habit, while the wave of sounds rose and fell to its own dreary rhythm.

Suddenly Sureshwari made an appeal. She had been struck by a desire to travel; she wanted to visit a series of idols of gods and goddesses across Bengal. Rajani Chakkotti from Hatgobindopur would accompany her, so she would face no difficulties. She would ensure there was no disruption to Dwarika’s life. He acceded to her request, although a conversation ensued on whether the last two of the five destinations she had mentioned should be included or not. The itinerary and requisite arrangements were finalized. Sureshwari was in raptures, and a corner of her eye seemed to glint. She went back to her adolescence in an instant; at least, that was what her smile seemed to tell Dwarika.

‘Get married, baba Daarik. I don’t like being alone in this house.’ Dwarika smiled without replying. Finishing his meal, he quickly got ready to leave.

As planned, Pulin—Dr Pulinchandra Basu—arrived as Dwarika was stepping out through the front door. Gaunt, with a carbuncle on his nose, a little shorter than Dwarika.

The brougham set off for the Medical College at Goldighi with its two passengers. Maijuddin was driving, with Anwar standing on the footrest at the back. Dwarika looked around in silence, his right hand resting on his medical bag. The palanquin stop was nearby; as they passed, the bearers got to their feet carrying a litter with two passengers inside. Then their chorus began…dhakkunabor heinya tabor, dhakkunabor heinya tabor…as they jogged forward in time.

A little later Pulin said, ‘Dr Koch had already identified the causes of anthrax and tuberculosis, so now he has also identified the cholera bacteria.’

‘Yes, it is like a novel,’ Dwarika said, nodding in agreement. ‘You can see him, dissecting the bodies of more than a hundred people who died of cholera in just fifteen or twenty days, discovering the comma-shaped bacteria…and then culturing the germ as well…it has been nine days now since he sent news of his findings to Berlin…’  After a pause he continued, ‘It is like a fairy tale.’

He rubbed his chin as he spoke, his usual gesture when talking of a medical success story. This was how he expressed joy and excitement, Pulin knew, which was why he provided the accompaniment at once.  ‘Like a hot knife through butter…like standing beneath the tree for a ripe mango to fall into your hands…’ Dwarika was silent, for he knew it wasn’t quite so simple.

It had begun four months ago in Alexandria. Cholera had spread its deadly web across the city on the banks of the Nile. For the medical community, it was essential to understand why. Two of Louis Pasteur’s assistants were there already, to be joined soon by a team of Germans led by Robert Koch. The French scientists returned home after their compatriot Thuillier died of cholera. The severity of the epidemic was reduced soon afterwards but meanwhile the illness had  struck Calcutta. When he heard, Koch and his assistants immediately travelled to the city to conduct their research.

Dwarika did not feel inclined to recount the entire story to Pulin, but it was a beautiful day and he found it difficult to be restrained. His  lips began. ‘You know what, Boseja moshai…now that the bacteria have been identified, its ability to do harm can be prevented too.’

Pulin said, ‘Perhaps, but do you think it will be easy?’

‘It may be difficult, but it will not be impossible. We could even find out that it is quite simple…for all we know the road lies right in front of us, it’s just that we are not able to see it.’

‘Eminently possible,’ seconded Pulin. ‘Not everyone dies when they get cholera…some do survive…’

‘Of course…’ Dwarika, rubbing his chin, repeated himself a few moments later. ‘Of course.’

‘Think about it, at one time, they used to pour hot oil into the wounds of injured soldiers to prevent purulence. Can you imagine the pain…and then Ambroise Paré showed that a gauze bandage worked better than oil…after which, Boseja moshai, Joseph Lister began to use bandages soaked in carbolic acid.’ Dwarika rubbed his chin again and continued narrating the thrilling tale to Pulin. As always, a foul smell hung in the air as they went past the neighbourhood of the doms. And, as they drove past the areas frequented by the degenerate gentlemen of the city, they could hear the usual banter and repartee to be found in these parts. A scrawny young rogue addressed an invisible woman, ‘You, my love, can never grow old, for your buttocks are lined with gold.’  Elsewhere, a lecherous old man was instigating three adolescents, ‘Set off crackers up that bastard’s arse…let him go straight to hell…’

Engrossed as they were in their conversation, the doctors were not troubled by this lewd talk. They didn’t even hear it. Suddenly a bullock cart blocked the road, forcing the brougham to jerk to a stop, startling the passengers. The Medical College was close by. ‘What is the matter?’ exclaimed Pulin.

Two men emerged from the bullock cart that was blocking their way. One of them said they were looking for Dwarikanath, who simply had to visit his house, where his brother had an uncontrollably high fever. The medicine prescribed by a neighbourhood doctor had, far from reducing his temperature, actually made it rise. ‘Intermittent fever, it appears,’ added the other man.

Dwarika was both annoyed and perturbed. Lowering his head, he thought it over for a few moments. Dr Koch and his team were going to present their findings today and explain the process for culturing bacteria. Doctors in Calcutta would learn of it before anyone else in the world, and from the horse’s mouth, at that. The lecture was scheduled to begin shortly. Only a fool would give up such an opportunity; there would be patients every day, but Dr Koch would give his talk only this one time.

Dwarikanath lifted his head to turn down the request. The two men had been joined by a third, older man, with wrinkles on his neck and face, and a wonderfully sculpted face. His eyes were brimming with tears, which were rolling down his cheeks. ‘Please come, Daktar moshai, my dearest friend’s only son…if he dies…’ He was unable to speak any more, his lips began to tremble.

‘Not possible…not possible.’ Pulin spoke sharply. Getting out of the carriage, he raised his voice. ‘Impossible today…look for someone else…clear the road…quickly now, quickly…’ The vehemence in Pulin’s tone brought Dwarika back to his senses. How could anyone refuse to examine a patient suspended between life and death? Pulin might be a good doctor, but he had no heart. Not even as much as could be balanced on a needle.

‘I will come with you, let’s go…’ Dwarika told the elderly man.

***

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