Off Clive Street

I

IF you take a taxi from Chowringhee, Calcutta, to Clive Street, where all the banks are, and then turn down toward Lyons Range, you will come to our office. To look at it you would not believe that we are people of consequence in the Indian business world. The building is old and rather insignificant, but our credit does not, fortunately, depend on the look of outhead office. Somehow no one seems to remember that the building needs a coat of paint until the hot weather is well under way, and then one might just as well wait six months until the rains are over before doing anything to it. Certainly one would not suspect that the building houses a great corporation with a capital of some crores of rupees paying a steady dividend of 30 per cent annually. Business in India does not worry about squalid surroundings. Indeed, the offices of one of the richest men in Calcutta do not boast more than one chair (for visitors), and there is not a table or typewriter in the place. The clerks sit around on cushions writing in the Marwari account books at little desks scarcely more than six inches high. The ink is in the form of a block, which has to be wetted and rubbed on a stone before it can be used. Of course, old Shriram is frankly conservative; but that makes no difference to his credit.

The door of our office is wide and low. There is a big porch over the sidewalk, supported on pillars. On the sidewalk a sweet seller has a tray of rather greasy sweets on which the flies gather if he forgets to work his fan for a moment. His memory is not very good, and the flies are generally allowed to rest in peace. There is also frequently a locksmith at work, sitting on his heels in the shadow of the building before the little box which not only forms his workbench, but also carries his stock in trade and his tools. Locks seem to go wrong more frequently in India than elsewhere, and the cry of the locksmith, ‘Chub-bee,' is one of the commonest in the streets.

The hallway is dark and gives a false impression of coolness. Just inside the door there is a long bench, and on it lounge the durwan-log, the hall porters attached to the office. They are all dressed in the kind of uniform we give them. It is a long white coat and turban with a white dhoty, the ordinary Hindu lower garment, worn petticoat-like and caught up between the legs. Over the right shoulder they wear a scarlet cloth band with a brass badge three inches long attached to it and engraved with the firm’s name. The durwans are among the most important people in the organization of an Indian business office.

In our office we employ about a hundred and fifty clerks and about forty durwans. Many of us have tried to reduce the number, but, as with many things of the kind in India, without success. There has always been that number and you may never now have less. The izzat, the honor, of the Company is at stake. When you are told this you get the impression that were you to reduce the strength by one— bang! would go your credit. The banks would regard it as the first step toward putting up the shutters.

The duties of the durwans are many. Primarily, of course, they are the doorkeepers, as their name would imply. They are also messengers. They take money to and from the banks and collect accounts with perfect trustworthiness. They meet you on your train or steamer and see you off, booking your luggage for you when you go. They are on duty in the office all night to answer the telephone and to take in cables, which in India arrive irrespective of the time of day.

At their head is a resplendent being, the jemadar. He does not dress as they do, but is clad in blue and gold. All our durwans arc high-caste Hindus from Rajputana. The jemadar is a man of very considerable consequence. He allows himself a dignified portliness and a beard which he wears long, parted in the middle and brushed up fiercely toward his ears. At night he ties it up in a bag to preserve its shape. It is black and likely to remain so, for it would be unseemly to admit that old age has terrors for such as he.

It is a splendid sight to see our jemadar taking the air of an evening. He does not go very far or very fast, but his progress is stately and magnificent. In full regimentals he stalks down the street, possibly to chat with his equals in other offices. At a discreet distance march two junior durwans, one carrying an umbrella in case it should rain, or, if the evening is fine, just in case it should be wanted. The other carries a brass box for betel leaves.

No one has ever seen the jemadar lose his dignity. Even when he is caught not fully dressed, asleep on a cot in the office at night, with his beard tied safely in its bag, he is still the jemadar.

Meeting the manager every morning is a nice exhibition of ceremonial. In the hallway of the office, at about the time the manager may be expected, the jemadar takes up his post with those of his staff not otherwise employed at the moment. They are lined up and inspected to see that each individual is properly dressed. When the manager’s car draws up at the porch there are two men in readiness, one to hold an umbrella over the august head if it is raining, the other to carry in dispatch case and raincoat. As the manager enters the hall the jemadar leads his men in a burra salaam, a grand salutation. If you have seen the Grenadier Guards on parade or the Imperial Guard turn out to royalty at Potsdam you may think you know something of movements of precision. But you don’t; not until you have seen our jemadar putting his men through the burra salaam for the manager in the morning. There is nothing servile in the jemadar’s salaam. It is the acknowledgment of a power that is only greater than his own. It is the act of one superman who can acknowledge another.

As the jemadar is responsible for his men, for whose good behavior he has had to give a bond, he also has to recruit them. They all come from the same village and are more or less closely related to the jemadar. Having recruited them, one suspects that he does not allow all the money that the durwans are down to draw on the pay sheet to get intact into their hands. That is the way of India. The jemadar is well-to-do, and it may be fairly assumed that he runs a private moneylending business. Most of the clerks owe money to him and he is always ready to accommodate them with more. No security is required. Indeed, at the rate of interest it would be an insult to ask for it. One anna per rupee per month is the cheapest rate of interest charged, not only by the jemadar, but in the bazaar as well. As there are sixteen annas in the rupee and interest has to be paid monthly, the rate works out at nearly 100 per cent per annum. Needless to say, he prefers not to be paid back the principal.

II

About twenty years ago the doyen of the jemadars in Calcutta was Buda Singh, the jemadar in our office. Even more magnificent, even more awe-inspiring than anyone else in that magnificent and awe-inspiring position, was Buda Singh. He had been jemadar for about twenty-five years and a durwan for ten or fifteen before that. In his youth he had been a regular nowsherwan, or ‘nine-tiger man.’ Nowsherwan is the equivalent of seven-at-a-blow in English fairy stories and denotes something quite out of the way in physique and courage.

A simple calculation will show that he was getting to be an old man, although, judging from office photographs of the time, he did not show any sign of his age. His beard was just as bushy as it had been and just as black, although what artifices he employed to keep it so no one knew. The time was coming, however, when he would have to show his age. His beard, if one looked closely, was going gray at the roots and his shoulders were beginning to be bowed. He never gave way to the weakness in public, but it was said that he had had to take to a pair of spectacles for reading.

The day came when he told the manager he had decided to retire. He probably explained the position at great length, that he was an old and poor man, that the Company was his father and his mother, that he had given up his life to its service when a man of his calibre might have been very much more profitably employed elsewhere, that living in Calcutta was very expensive, and what did they propose to do about it anyway?

The manager, whoever he was then, probably put his tongue in his cheek, professed to agree with all that had been said, and promised to think the matter over. He was doubtless quite glad in his heart, for Buda Singh at sixty, if he was like others of his kind, was becoming rather a crotchety nuisance. The upshot of it all was that Buda Singh was allowed to retire and, as far as can be discovered at this stage, he was given a cash present of a hundred and fifty rupees and a pension for life of fifteen rupees a month. This all happened, mind you, before the war, when fifteen rupees was worth fifteen rupees. The Company was considered to have acted generously by all except Buda Singh, who made a somewhat half-hearted attempt to get more.

Another jemadar was appointed, and Buda Singh prepared to leave for his country. He gave strict instructions to his successor as to how he was to do his job and equally strict instructions to the managers as to how they were to treat the new jemadar. In fact, having done all he could to see that the firm would be able to carry on business after his departure, he left for his village somewhere in the wilds of Rajputana, twelve hundred miles away.

For years nothing was heard of Buda Singh. Monthly his pension was remitted by money order to an obscure post office of which no one had ever heard, and monthly the receipt came back signed with Buda Singh’s name. Monthly the cashier made out a pay slip which went up to the accountant for initialing and then to the manager for signature. No one thought of questioning the correctness of the payment, or if one did send to the cashier and ask the why and the wherefore, the authority would be produced, and no more was thought about the matter.

Then last year Jones came to us as accountant. Possibly he was more versed in the wickedness of the world than most of us, but as soon as he came he started to ask questions. Jones was a man of somewhat uncertain temper, and the clerks on the accounts side soon began to wear very harried expressions. Not that there was anything wrong, but the Bengali babu does not answer questions very readily if he feels that he is being harried. At the end of the month the pay slip for Buda Singh’s pension came in for Jones’s initial, and Jones was on to it like a knife. He sent for the cashier.

The cashier was a man called Chunder Sen, who had been with us for thirty years or so. He was an old and trusted servant of the firm, and he knew the books inside out. He had never learned to speak very good English, but it would have made him feel very much hurt indeed if he had known how his jewels of speech were preserved in the office. Sen had one or t wo very annoying habits. He was quite unable to explain the simplest thing, and as soon as he tried he began to get nervous. As soon as he got an attack of nerves he would smile in an arch and rather fatuous manner that most of us understood was due to his embarrassment. Jones, however, found it particularly infuriating, which undoubtedly it was; but it only made matters worse to get annoyed. Sen’s great points were his accuracy and his extreme trustworthiness. When we first introduced calculating machines Sen showed his true qualities. The machines had been in use for a month before it was discovered that Sen was staying in the office until ten o’clock each night checking every figure that had been produced on the machines. As lie explained, he never put his name to any figures that he had not checked himself.

III

So Chunder Sen was sent for to explain the mystery of Buda Singh. He came into the room and, putting his spectacles on the end of his nose, awaited the storm with an air of respectful attention.

‘Look here, Sen,’ said Jones, ‘I have told you before that things are not to be sent in to me for my initial until there is some explanation of what it is all about. Who is this Buda Singh, anyway, who gets a pension every month?’

‘Buda Singh,’ said Sen, settling his spectacles firmly on his nose again, ‘was old jemadar here formerly. He retired and there was order to pay pension to same monthly. We have continued to send I think maybe thirty years now.’

‘Good heavens, man, thirty years! But how do you know that he is still alive?’

‘We get money-order receipt, sir, monthly, and I think he still alive.’

‘But surely you must have some other proof that he is alive beyond a receipt on a money order!’

‘But, sir,’ said Sen, ‘money-order receipt good enough proof of his life.’

‘That is all bunk,’ said Jones.

‘Bunk, sir? What is bunk?’ asked Sen, always eager to learn and to increase his stock of English idiom.

‘Bunk is bunk,’ Jones replied, rather stumped for a definition.

‘Oh, I see, sir. Bunk is chitchat for tommyrot, slack English way of saying nonsense, it is not?’

‘Yes, yes, but what about this man Buda Singh?’ said Jones rather impatiently.

’I think maybe he must be alive.'

‘Maybe! There can be no maybe about it in a matter like this. We have got to find out for certain whether he is alive or not.’

‘I think then, sir, we maybe can write to Buda Singh and tell him firm not sending pension until he send proof of he being still in this life. Maybe he can get certificate from District Magistrate. If he is deceased he can’t get.'

‘Yes, I suppose that will have to do. Send him a letter on those lines and see what happens.'

Having given these instructions, Jones promptly forgot all about the matter. The work of the office went on without interruption for three weeks or so. No one thought of Buda Singh, except, possibly Chunder Sen, who never forgot anything, and he saw no reason to remind anyone of him.

Then one morning when Jones was, as usual, chasing obscure figures in the ledgers with Chunder Sen at his elbow, the door of his room was thrown open and in walked Buda Singh — at least, Jones did not know then that it was Buda Singh. He was followed by the jemadar carrying an umbrella — and the jemadar never carries anything for anybody — and two durwans, one of whom bore a bundle wrapped in checked cloth and the other a betel box and an aluminium tiffin carrier, which is like a three-storied dinner pail. No self-respecting Indian ever travels without all of these things.

Jones looked up aghast at the old man, whose beard, now allowed to be white, was parted in the middle and swept up to his ears in fierce curves. His step was firm and his eye still commanded. There was still the comfortable portliness of twenty-five years ago.

‘This is Buda Singh, your honor,5 said the jemadar.

‘Buda Singh Bahadurji,’said each of the two durwans.

‘Huzoor,’said the old man, ‘I am that Buda Singh who was jemadar.’

‘Buda Singh?’ said Jones. ‘Sen, who on earth is Buda Singh?'

‘Please, sir, they say this is Buda Singh. Maybe you remember sending letter telling him to inform if he is still alive. Formerly he is jemadar and maybe he has come personally to advise same, is n’t it?'

‘Well, is it Buda Singh?’ asked Jones.

‘Maybe,’said Sen. ‘If it is not, he is a very similar man,’he added complacently, and turned back to the column of figures he was adding.

‘But you must know,’said Jones.

‘Maybe it is he,’Sen replied, unwilling to commit himself. ’He is a little old, is n’t it?’ And he went on adding.

Jones sighed, for he supposed that he would have to allow that Buda Singh still lived and that the wickedness of the world was as yet unexposed. He was wondering what to say next when the old man broke in on the silence.

‘Huzoor, for thirty years I have drawn the Company’s pension of fifteen rupees a month. This was all right until the war, when everything became most expensive. And now, sir, fifteen rupees is no longer what it was. I hear that the present jemadar, a mere boy, is drawing more pay than I. Buda Singh, ever got as jemadar. He is the son of my father’s wife’s nephew. In my village my izzat is gone. They look at me and say, “Does not your father’s wife’s nephew’s son get ten rupees a month more than you ever got? Hut! Budaji, he is greater than you. The Company does not pay for nothing.” And, sahib,’ the old voice quavered, ‘I am old and poor and my izzat is gone. The Company is my father and mother. Don’t you think you could ask the Burra Manager Sahib that the pension of Buda Singh, Jemadar, be increased?’

‘No,’ said Jones shortly. ‘Now that I know that you are alive, it is all that I want. You may go.’

‘All right, sahib, all right,’ said the old man, unabashed, and the procession filed out. First, Buda Singh, erect as ever, with fiercely curled beard, then the jemadar with the umbrella, and, after him, the two durwans with their burdens.

IV

An hour later Jones was disturbed by Buda Singh again.

‘Huzoor,’ said the old man, ‘my bill,’ and presented him with a long account.

‘What’s this?’ said Jones.

‘Sir,’ said Buda Singh with dignity, ‘your lordship called me to show that I am alive. J have come at your honor’s bidding. This is my bill.’

It was a long account. It started with an item for three days’ camel hire at one rupee per day, then the hire of a ferryboat and a bullock cart to bring him to a station on the Ajmer line. Then rail fare to Calcutta and eight days’ subsistence at one rupee, four annas per day. There were other items, a lot of them, but these were the main ones. This brought the old man to Calcutta. A claim for four days’ subsistence in Calcutta followed — at two rupees a day, for Calcutta is expensive. Then railway fare from Calcutta to the station on the Ajmer line.

The bill finished as it had started, with items for one day’s bullock-cart hire, a ferryboat, and three days’ camel hire at one rupee per day. The whole, meticulously totaled, came to one hundred and twenty-three rupees, seven annas, and five pies.

Jones signed the bill without a word and handed it back.

’I thank your lordship,’ said Buda Singh, and turned to go. Halfway to the door he turned back with a hopeful look on his face.

‘And would your lordship wish that I should return in a year to show again that I still live?’

‘No,’ said Jones in a small voice, ‘I think not.’