Raj Quartet by Paul Scott -- Division of the Spoils

[straudetwo]

Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet. We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence,  the third book of the Raj Quartet.

Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo

Continuing

Perron admired the old wazir's clarity of memory, his knowledge, experience and statecraft. What will be the future of Mirat? he asked him.
 
Mirat will be absorbed into the provincial administration of Ranpur,  ruled from Ranpur and Delhi under the control of a deputy commissioner to be sent down. The revenues will go to Government and Government in turn will accept certain responsibilities for Miratis. Mirat will become a constituency or several constituencies, able to elect and send members to the legislative assembly.

Years earlier Bronowsky had foreseen such a development and told the Nawab that if either of his two sons had political talent, there might have been a way of maintaining control (izzat) under a new dispensation.  For in a world where a ruling prince becomes redundant, there should be  an opportunity for one of his heirs, someone in his family, to sit not on the gaddi (=throne) but in the assembly, perhaps even a ministerial chair  at the Secretariat.

Neither of the Nawab's sons had talent or wit, Bronowsky confided. That's when his eyes fell on another member of the house of Kasim. The Ranpur branch. The rebellious political branch. Ahmed. Bronowsky's intention was to arrange - withoutundue pressure - an alliance between  the princely Kasims of Mirat and the political Kasims of Ranpur.  That was the reason behind his grooming of Ahmed. He had even hoped that Ahmed and Shiraz  would fall in love some day. But God did not dispose what Bronowsky so devoutly wished. 

A servant came with a message and Bronowsky left briefly.   Returning he reported  "There are fires in the city. They are burning each other's shops".
Whenever he had seen a sight like that in the past eight months, he added, he was comforted by the thought that Colonel Merrick was coping with it. He missed him now.   Before the war, he went on, there were no civil disturbances. In the rural areas Bronowsky toured, a Hindu or a Muslim farmer didn't have the vaguest idea of who Gandhi was, or who Jinnah was.  For him the world began and ended in his fields, and with his landlord, and with the tax-collectors, and with Nawab Sahib in Mirat, Lord of the world, Giver of Grain.

Then came the war and aftermath.  But by the time the Mirati gunners came back to their heroes' welcome, Congress and the League had already taken up the cudgels on behalf of the INA. When the most outspoken of the returning gunners said what they thought of Bose, they were beaten up in the bazaar.  Poor Ahmed  was beaten when it became known that his father, MAK, was not going to defend his other son, Sayed, which was a blessing in disguise because it stopped Ahmed from his excursions to the bazaar to see the "ladies of the night".   The result was a virtual breakdown in the Mirat Police department that could not be resolved.  The Nawab and Bronowsky felt they should not depend entirely on help from the British cantonment.  In the end the Nawab sent Brnowsky to Delhi to  plead the case to the states police. They dispatched Roland Merrick.

When Bronowsky heard WHO was coming in command of a States Police detachment and in an advisory capacity to the Nawab and himself,  his first thought was no, no, no, no. This man  has a controversial reputation; the last time he was in Mirat, he was subject to attention of people who seemed determined to persecute him for what he had done in Mayapore.  What are they doing sending him back here? employing him again in the police? Stll, he had seen him only once before.

Merrick treated the whole thing as though it were just a silly quarrel between naughty hildren. He inspired confidence with his impartiality and his absolutely inflexible, unshakeable sense of his own authority.
When Bronowsky asked him if he was still persecuted by people making melodramatic demonstrations, throwing stones and chalking inauspicious signs on his doorstep he said, as he had in Bombay, all that had ended. 
Those who had kept track of him for five years certainly had many opportunities to kill him. Why now?  The obvious intention was to aggravate racial tension. But an open investigation would have caused a great deal of distress an pain for Susan. In her unstable state of mind and health it was better for her not to know under what strange and unsavory circumstances her husband died.

"Do spies come into the picture? asked Perron. Susan mentioned them."

To be contiued

[straudetwo]

Continuing

"Mr. Perron," Bronowsky answered,  "he had no spies. Nor did he ever go out in these clothes.  He might well have done it in his earlier years, disguising himself as a Pathan and going out into the bzaars, dark paint on his face. And of course in his time he must have employed spies in his department, just as our own police chief employs them.

"But Ronald and spies and Indian clothes, here in Mirat?  No, no; that was mere play-acting. Khansamar never believed in spies.  And if I had heard anything, I could have alerted Khansamar to be more on his guard.  Then I could also have warned Ronald, though that would been a delicate task. But he may not have needed a warning. It's quite possible that he knew what was going on,   in which case his murder might be seen as a form of suicide[/color].  Unfortunately I heard of 'spies'  too late : when Khansamar was questioned and told us about these visitors."

"Visitors, distinct from people coming to ask for  a job?  That's what Susan believed." Perron said.

It's also what Khansamar  believed originally, continued Bronowsky. With the benefit of hindsight it became clear that it was all part of a new, subtle form of persecution.  Young men began to appear soon after Merrick moved into Nigel's bungalow, while the larger bungalow next door was being readied for Susan and the child.
  
None of the young men was a Mirati; the chits they carried meant nothing to Khansamar, who was illiterate. He turned them all away. One of them persisted and stood by the gate every day.  Merrick looked at his references - which may or may not have been genuine - and told him there was no work to offer him. He was back the next day. He salaamed every time Merrick came in or out.

Finally Merrick told Khansamar to put the boy to work, and to work him so hard that he would give up.  But he did not. He worked so well helping one of the malis clear the compound  that in a day or two the tennis court was almost finished.  When Merrick came to inspect, they were laying the lines for the lime-wash. He told Khansamar to  next put the boy to work cutting the tall grass.  And in the evening the boy worked on a new vegetable patch behind the servants' quarters.

The boy was well-mannered and respectful.  His name was Aziz. The mali's wife had begun to mother him. One evening Aziz addressed Khansamar as "father", and he, who had several daughters but no sons, was moved.  He assigned less strenuous work to Aziz.  Then Merrick asked  Khansamar whether the boy could also read and write. The answer was yes, he could read, slowly. Every night he was reading aloud from the newspapers, haltingly.  So Aziz was put to the task of painting the book shelves in the bigger bungalow and transferring the books from the packing cases to the shelves, and putting them in  alphabetical order by author's name.

One early evening when Khansamar walked to the room where Aziz was working to tell him it was time for the evening meal, he heard the boy laughing. Aziz was sitting on the floor, with his back to the half open door, reading a book,  turning the pages ---   rapidly  for someone who normally read aloud with difficulty.  But when Khansamar checked by the servants' quarters later, he found Aziz reading from the newspaper as usual,  slowly, haltingly.

By this time Khansamar had come to regard Aziz with affection.  The boy had told him he was  all alone in the world, father and mother dead, he had left the village at a young age but kept up with his reading.  It wasn't easy for Khansamar to admit to himself that the young man he had seen reading quickly through one of the Sahib's books and laughing was quite different from the one who had presented himself at the gate as a farmer's son.  Was it possible that he was not the sort of  boy he pretended to be?

Khansamar  suddenly remembered that after the boy had first scythed the grass, he wore rags  the next day to cover blisters on his palms and fingers. He  had never complained of sore hands.  At that moment something else struck Khansamar as odd: since Aziz had come,  no one had appeared at the gate waving their little chits, begging to see Colonel Sahib.  Unable to sleep he got up, dressed and checked the hut where Aziz slept. It was bolted from the outside.

It was a peaceful Indian night and understandable that Aziz, a strong young fellow, could have gone to the bazaar to meet a girl. Khansamar woke up the chaudikar (=gate keeper) and scolded him for sleeping on the job. Back in his quarters he  waited, more awake than ever. Eventually he heard a small sound. He got up and went over. A light was on in the hut. He knocked. When Aziz opened the door, Khansamar  said something like "What foolishness is this? Where have you been?" Aziz said he was relieving himself. "For two hours?" Khansamar said. "Are you ill?"

Then he noticed marks on the boy's face and that he had been bathing them. Talking like an angry father, Khansamar asked more questions.  Aziz was contrite. Yes, he said, he had been in the bazaar,  but  he had fallen climbing over the locked gate.  "Wasn't Chaudikar there to help you over?" Aziz laughed and said he was no doubt asleep as usual on the verandah. Khansamar did not believe Chaudikar would have gone to sleep again after being scolded, but he realized that, with two bungalows to look after, it would have been possible for Aziz to slip over one of the gates without being seen.  So he just gave Aziz a  talking off and warned him that Colonel Sahib might have to be informed.

To be continued

[Frybabe]

I must have been asleep when I read the last book. I don't remember much of this at all.

[straudetwo]

Frybabe,  many thanks for your post.  
Yes, these last 50-odd or 60-odd pages are truly a mini treasure trove. Now, finally, we are getting a clearer notion of Merrick, though mysteries remain. The information is conveyed in dialogue, and Bronowsky is a brilliant raconteur, among other things,  and Perron the ideal attentive, knowledgeable listener.  But it is Scott who invented all the voices. In Jewel in the Crown, for example, we really  hear the Indian English   in the detainees' confessions; we hear a more cultivated Indian English from the mouth of MAK.
Next we are going to be privy to the exchange between Khansamar and the chaudikar, narrated by Bronowsky in THEIR voices. A linguistic feat, if ever there was one. Scott makes us read each and every word  (often more than once) and forces us to come to our own conclusions. It is not the plot (alone) that matters to him, rather it is (a) the epic concept and (b) the intricacy of the innumerable details.

More to come tomorrow.

[straudetwo]

Additional commentary.

In the conversation with Perron Bronowsky makes it clear that the returning Merrick had "certain qualities". Perron replied, crossly, "I saw only the bad side, I'm afraid."
One thing seemed new, Bronowsky added. Merrick struck him as an inwardly melancholy man. Only when he was in the company of the child did he glow with the old conviction.

"And when he was with his wife?" asked Perron.

"I am no judge, Mr. Perron. I cannot gauge the warmth between a man and a woman, a warmth I never enjoyed. One eventually withdraws, becomes insensitive.  I admit that when I first met Merrick on the day of Susan's wedding, I was sensitive to what I thought might be certain tendencies. I wish now I had been more sensitive to the possibility to these tendencies having become  - how shall I say - in no way lessened by his experience of marriage.

This elegant circumlocution leaves no doubt about Merrick's latent homosexuality, though the word is uttered by bronowsky only once.

Continuing

When Khansamar got up the next morning, which was always before anybody else because it was his duty to make Colonel Sahib's chota hazri (small breakfast), he first sought out the chaudikar and asked wwhether he had stayed awake and if so whether he had seen anything unusual.  Chaudikar answered he had certainly stayed awake after being woken but he had seen nothing unusual.
Khansamar then asked him whether he wouldn't call it unusual to see Aziz climbing over a gate, missing his footing and falling on the gravel so heavily that he had grazed his face badly. Chaudikar agreed that would be unusual.
In which case, Khansamar said, chudikar had neglected to see something unusual because that is what happened. So he could only believe that chaudikar had fallen asleep again, and that would have to be reported to Colonel Sahib.

"I do not advise that," said chaudikar. "Colonel Sahib will think you are trying to make trouble for him.
Last night and the night before Aziz was with Colonel Sahib. I saw Aziz go in the door of the ghusl-khana just as I saw him go in the night before.  The only difference was that the night before I stayed on watch, expecting him to come out like a thief,  in which case I would have pounced on him.  But he came out after some time by the same door and Colonel Sahib was with him, dressed in the clothes he sometimes wears when he is alone. He is a Pathan at heart and Aziz is a fine sturdy boy. It does not surprise me that Colonel Sahib has been tempted. I have seen him watching Aziz working in the compound. And when Aziz went into the bungalow again last night I thought it is none of my business. And since Colonel Sahib is not alone in the house I can nod off for a moment."

Khansamar thought it was no business of his either. But he had seen the mess that had been made of Aziz's face, and when he took in Colonel Sahib's chota hazri he found him already up, sitting in front of the dressing-table, and wearing his harness. The knuckles of his right hand were grazed. He had beaten the boy with his fist. At that moment Khansamar conceived a dislike for Merrick, a cold dislike;  contempt. And he wondered why a boy like Aziz had submitted to that kind of treatment.

"Do you wonder, Mr. Perron?"  "Tell me why you don't," said Perron.

It was clear, Bronowsky continued, he had been instructed. Instructed to present himself, to stand there by the gate until Merrick had seen him. Instructed also to submit without complaint to anything Merrick did  once he had accepted the lure of this terrible attraction, of this terrible temptation young men like Aziz represented.

"Instructed by whom?"

"Not Pandit Baba, don't  you agree?"
The Pandit was probably superseded long ago by someone with a more modern, more intelligent approach. There are always plenty of gurus waiting in the wings, and many young men are willing and reay to serve and submit and suffer in the belief that what they do is for a cause.  Whoever had instructed Aziz, his predecessors and those who followed him, must have known of Merrick's tendencies. How?  Possibly  because of an indiscretion or lapse? In any event, it was the new form of persecution. Merrick was constantly besieged by a steady flow of young men; gradually men of steelier temperament, young men capable of taking the ultimate step when the victim was properly lulled.

Merrick sacked Aziz. He told Khansamar there was no more work for Aziz. Aziz was sent packing.
A week or two later another boy arrived, begging for a job, coming back day after day. The same kind of boy. Merrick resisted the bait. The boy gave up.  Only to be replaced by another. And another.  And then Susan and Sarah arrived with the child and the ayah, occupying the bigger bungalow.  And still they came, these young fellows.  Perhaps some of them were genuinely looking for employment. hansamar thought so because  not all of them were like Aziz.  But from time to time there would be one like Aziz.
And then the tactics changed.

To be continued
Thank you for being here.

[straudetwo]

Commentary

There is no mention in any of the glossaries I checked of the term gusl-khana,  printed in the book also as  as ghusl-khana. The term apparently refers to a separate entrance at the other end of the bungalow, which led to the room where Merrick worked late, and where Susan found him one night dressed in his Pathan clothes.

There is also no mention in the glossaries I checked- much less an identification- of the term Pathan.  The only reference on record I found earlier  is the remarkably similar evaluation (or was it perhaps a quip ?)of two colonial officers who served in India at about he same time, one Frederic Mackeson  and Sir Robert Warburton. Both said Pathans were either "brave and honorable OR treacherous scoundrels. We must assume that Paul Scott' impression and/or experience were unfavorable.

Continuing

In late April when the weather was becoming oppressive, a young Pathan arrived late one night and insisted on seeing Merrick personally because he had an official, confidential message. He stayed only for a short time.  What was said?  What services offered, what services implied?

In May Susan, the child and the ayah returned to Pankot.
A few days later Merrick told Khansamar he was expecting a messenger, late in the day.  Chaudikar shouldn't lock the gates.
The Pathan arrived just before midnight. This time he had a companion. Both were taken to Merrick's study. A short time later Merrick told Khansamar that one of the men should be given a bed for the night. The Pathan left and the chaudikar locked the gates behind him. The companion was a younger man, a boy like Aziz. He wore European clothes and had a bedroll with him. The verandah would do very well, he said. Khansamar brought him a cup of tea. The young man asked a great many questions about Mirat and Khansamar asked him why. The boy laughed, apologized and said it was a habit acquired from his work. What sort of work was that? Kansamar asked in turn. Why, confidential work for the police, what else?

Khansamar believed only half of it. But he did not worry either way. It was the Sahib's affair if he slept with boys when his wife was away. But in the morning when he took the boy some tea, he was quite innocently asleep where Khansamar had left him. He was soon washed, dressed and gone. Khansamar  didn't ask Chaudikar if he had seen anything and Chaudikar volunteered nothing.

And so it continued. Every two to three weeks two young men came, one going, one staying. Sometimes the one who stayed brought the next new one.  Sometimes Khansamar had not seen either boy before. None was a Mirati.

*What may have been on Merrick's mind?
*Was there some reality behind this illusion of spies?
*Or had he simply told the Pathan to procure boys for him?
*Did he put himself deliberately in the way of it?
*If so, did he see any connection between this arrangement and the earlier forms of persecution?

When the rains came  the boys no longer slept on the verandah but stayed indoors in an empty room, free to go tohim at any time.

*Did they?  Perhaps.
*If they went, did anything occur?
*Did they just sit there discussing the information they had pretended to collect, or actually collected for him?  Perhaps.

On the night he was murdered the private drawer in his desk was forced open. Something could have been removed.  But what?  A dossier of real or imaginary political acativity in Mirat or scandalous activities, rel or imaginary, of Mirati police officicials?
*Had Merrick believed any of it?
*Is it possible  that he simply pretended to need such information and waited for them to make clear what they were  offering, then blandly ignoring every hint, every temptation?

Perron thought it possible but not very probable in view of the Aziz "business".
Bronowsky disagreed, precisely because of the Aziz business: because it revealed something to Merrick that appalled him.
"Appalled  him?"

Not the  revelation of his latent homosexuality amd sado-masochism, which must have been apparent to him for  many years, and given some form of expression from time to time.  But instead the revelation of a connection between them, and  the sense of social inferiority and the grinding defensive belief in his racial superiority.  

According to Bronowsky's conjecture Aziz was the first young man Merrick had made love to - which brought him a moment of profound peace - and then the instant realization that he could not acknowledge that peace because it  meant discarding every belief he had.  According to Bronowsky's theory, Merrick felt punished and humiliated when Aziz returned the next night.

Moreover, so Bronowky's reconstruction, Merrick invited retaliation when he beat Aziz with his fist.  He knew why Aziz had arrived. In the final analysis, he sought the occasion of his death and grew impatient for it.  He wanted there to be a man in the nullah. He wanted a stone thrown at his horse.  He wanted what happened to happen. Perhaps he hoped that his murder would be avenged in some splendidly spectacular way ...

Yhere was no apparent difference between all the previous nights of the spies and the fatal night. Two young men came. Neither had been there before. One stayed, one went. Perhaps the one who went did not really go but came back and stayed hidden, to assist when the time came. It was a lot for one man to do between midnight and 6 in the morning. That's when Khansmar came with the chota hazri.  The visitor who was to stay the night had left. Chaudikar had seen nothing, heard nothing, which doesn't necessarily mean he was asleep, for the boys could have scaled the back gate.

The real mystery is what happened in the room. Habibullah said he was strangled before he was hacked about with his ornamental axe, dressed  in his Pathan clothes.  Had he dressed himself?  It will never be known why he was murdered on that particular night. Perhaps because it was exactly the right time for leaving a dead Englishman on our doorstep.

*********
There's one last segment in this chapter to be recapped.
Please share your thoughts on Pandora's Box.
As always, thank you.

[Frybabe]

Pathan is another name for the Pashtun people of Afganistan and Pakistan. The second link is most interesting as it includes pronunciation and word origins.

http://www.sabawoon.com/afghanpedia/People.Pashtun.shtm

http://www.paklinks.com/gs/all-views/88-pathan-pakhtun-pashtun-explained.html

[straudetwo]

Frybabe,  Yes, I'm laughing.  Thank you again for the information about Pashtuns and their ethnic origin.
The writer of the second reference is probably a very young "dude" himself   . Since he has friends in the Punjab, it's likely he lives in Pakistan.   West Pakistan, that is.  I'm so grateful we have the map in the header.
Look where East Pakistan is!!  Actually, even the Punjab itself was divided, we read in one chapter of this volume, - by somebody who'd never been there.  No wonder details were kept hush-hush until the very day of th Partition!  What a disgrace.

Also I wonder whether the second writer meant Sanskrit.
I never heard of "Sinsicrat" and do not believe the word exists. 

[Frybabe]

I don't know Traude, I am unable to find much information on Sinsikrat. Some old forums where they are talking about different dialects/languages mention that Sinsikrat is a form of very old language used by the Hindi people. It is no longer spoken apparently.  I haven't seen anything that mentions whether there is a relationship to it and Sanskrit. I think this will require some very deep digging.

[straudetwo]

Thank you, Frybabe.

All I can say is that my Big Random House Dictionary does not show "Sinsicrat".
The word is not in my Encyclopedia Britannica, and Google has no definition for it. Sanskrit, on the other hand IS defined by all three sources.  
Could Sinsicrat chave been a spelling error? In any event, the story about the legendary Pathan's kidnapping of a Nawab's daughter may well be apocryphal, as Mr. Khan suggests, but it's amusing nonetheless and hints at the reputation or notoriety, true or false, of the Pathans described by Paul Scott put into the Raj Quartet.  

Commentary
The essential aspects of Merrick's violent death were well explained by Count Bronowsky - to the extent possible. Other questions remain, all are unanswerable.

1. Susan agreed to marry Merrick because her son needed a father and Merrick was good for Edward,  good to him.  Not so much Susan as  Merrick and the ayah were responsible for his upbringing. Susan  had leaned heavily on Sarah for years, later also on Aunt Fenny. Emotionally insecure, she had always needed the support, adoration and approval of others. We can only speculate about the direct cause of her breakdown and the period of insanity,nothing more.

2. What were Merrick's motives in marrying Susan? He planned it meticulously, certain in advance of his success.  Armed with the knowledge he had gleaned from the (unauthorized) reading Dr. Richardson's private file on Susan, he asked Col. Layton for her hand.  

No doubt it was a major step up on the career ladder.  He was clearly attached to the child.
But isn't it possible that this carefully arranged marriage would be, and was, the perfect cover for what Bronowsky called "his ambiguous tendencies"? Was she merely clay in his hands?
There's no question he knew all her secrets, the better to manipulate her.
If that wasn't moral abuse,  at the very least it was ethical abuse.

3. What reason could he have had for choosing "victims", why did he enjoy imposing his will on them and humiliating them? To prove absolute power and superiority?

4. If he knew that the young men actuallycame to bait and possibly seek to kill him, did he have a death-wish, as Brownosky suggested?  
If he was impatient for his own death, could that be construed in any way as redemption?

These are only reflections.  
We can now outline the last portion of the chapter.

Thank you.

[straudetwo]

Today I had to juggle a regularly scheduled appointment and an emergency.
All's well. Except that I'm not in top form to continue our exchange this evening.
I will be back.

[Frybabe]

Relax a bit.  Do not much of anything. Re-energize. We'll be around when you ready.

[straudetwo]

The relaxation turned into an unplanned intermission, for which I apologize. But it has come to an end.  I am back and ready to summarize and reflect on the ending of this masterful story.  Over many months we have virtually lived with several unforgettable fictional characters.  We've felt their frustration, their anxiety at being caught up in the maelstrom of a massive hasty withdrawal and violence, propelled by forces they could neither deter nor control.  

No one on the platform of the Mirat railway station on that Thursday in August of 1947 could have known that the unavoidable clash between the old order and the untested, untamed new order would lead to violence on the train to Ranpur.  The scene, as chronicled by Guy Perron , was noisy and crowded even where the first-class coaches stood.  The usually sober British seemed determinedly cheerful and jolly, seeing friends off and being seen off.  The Peabodys, Perron knew, were 'staying on' in Rawalpindi, which was going to Pakistan (and for precisely that reason Lady Manners had left 'Pindi).  
 
The Peabodys had an immense amount of luggage. Mrs. Peabody, a tall and thin woman,  expertly directed the transfer of every piece into the compartment,  where Major Peabody, equally tall and thin (two beanpoles, thought Perron),  ended up commandeering most of the available space. After Merrick's battered metal trunk and the rdoubled-up carpet had been carried in, one side of the compartment was totally blocked by a wall of luggage.  A warning whistle sounded,  all farewells were said,  the passengers climbed in. The ayah followed Edward in.  Mrs. Peabody looked annoyed.  Ahmed got on last, carrying a briefcase, and went into the lavatory.  Perron heard Mrs. Peabody draw in her breath,  then slowly exhale.

To be continued

[straudetwo]

Continuing

The train was the regular 10 a.m. express to Ranpur, its only scheduled stop Premanagar, normally reached at 11:15.  

Within half an hour of leaving Mirat the train was ambushed, after rounding a curve on to a straight level embankment. A cow was on the track.  When the engineer brought the train to a stop, men ran up from both sides. Two, armed with swords, climbed on to the footplate.  The others began running down the track and climbed into the carriages.

Some passengers later said he attackers were joined by men who had been on the train from Mirat and then produced knives and cudgels and joined the raiders.  They went on a rampage through the third-class carriages, pulling out Muslims or killing them on the spot. One of the men who boarded the train in Mirat must have made a note of the compartment Ahmed Kasim had entered.

Ahmed sat closest  to the window when the train stopped; he opened it and looked out, sizing up the situation.  Ignoring Mrs. Peabody's indignant protests he ordered  the windows on both sides of the compartment  closed and the shutters pulled down. He told ayah to hide under the bench, and an unwilling Edward to play hide-and-seek with her.  Screaming could be heard from the outside.

Then there was loud, repeated, persistent banging on the door. Glass shattered.  A voice outside said, "Come on, Kasim Sahib, or do we have to break in and annoy all the sirs and ladies?  Kasim?  Kasim Sahib?"

Ahmed got up and said "It seems to be me they want" , opened the door and went.   A turbanned head appeared at eye level.  Standing on the steps, the man seemed  about to come in.  He had one hand  on the door handle,  in the other a sword.   He said, "Sorry to have disturbed you, sirs and ladies. On to Ranpur, isn't it?" . With that he let himself fall away, dragging the door shut. Major Peabody lunged forward and locked it.
 
Then the train began to slide forward, slowly, smoothly. A signal had been given, one man had untethered the cow, the two intruders on the footplate ordered the engineer to resume the journey, then jumped off. He needed no persuasion.  He did not look back.  He next stopped at Premanagar.
Since the scene of horror there has been  shown in the Masterpiece Theatre Production of The Jewel in the Crown.  I won't dwell on i here.

The narrative leads us to conclude that the massacre was a retaliation for the killing and burning in Mirat the night before when Muslims attacked Hindus, because Mirat was going under Congress rule.  And, according to Sarah's afterthoughts,  Amed was marked a victim not just because he was a Muslim but because the people who killed him didn't want Muslims in the Congress, or didn't trust Muslims in Congress, and Ahmed's father was still in Congress. The Laytons'  first class compartment, it turned out, was the only one attacked. It had been chalk-marked by those who wanted Ahmed Kasim killed.

The train went on to Ranpur under military guard; the remaining passenges safe.
Perron returned to Mirat on the same day.

There's only a Coda to consider and any remarks, thoughts or questions  you may want to express.












 

[Frybabe]

Hi Traude,

I never say the TV production but the book narrative was gruesome enough.

I can't think of any questions or comments right now, except:

Since you will be leading the discussion for That Old Cape Magic, are you still interested in continuing with Staying On at some point? I'd like to, but there doesn't seem to be much interest. Of course, I am to blame for my lack of comments here because I didn't want to spend a few bucks to replace the set I had.
 I am still betting on my Mom having it somewhere.

Oh, and I finally got Six Days in Myapore.

[straudetwo]

Hello, Frybabe, and thank you.  

I saw the TV adaptation only once,  years ago.  Of the last part just summarized I remember only the scene in the Premanagar station where Sarah and Perron fetched water for the injured an dying-- probabably because it was so vivid.  But there really is no substitute for the full text.

We've seen Paul Scott  go to great lengths to drive home a point. However he is a master also in thedeliberate understatement, showing (rather than telling) the tension-filled scene in the compartment before and after the ambush:
 the attitude of the Peabodys (who are meant to exemplify, I believe, everything that was done wrong by the British in India);  
the virtual line of demarkation created by the mound of  heir luggage, like a rampart from behind which the bored child shouted "bang bang" at the other passengers over and over;
the juddering of the luggage when the train came to a sudden stop;
the boy's crying and Susan's wailing before Ahmed took control.  

There was no direct violence directed at the Layton's compartment, only the threat against Ahmed by the turbanned man with the sword at the door Ahmed had opened. No protests  were made inside the compartment; Major Peabody lunged  forward but he was too late.  Ever since the reader met Ahmed in the Day of the Scorpion, Ahmed was always aloof, totally unmoved by by and uninterested in local politics, power politics and the 'business' of the Raj.  Under the circumstances I daresay his self-sacrifice is  a surprising act of heroism.

There's more information in the remaining pages of the "Coda", specifically about Hari Kumar, and I'll get to it.

Frybabe, we've long said we'd like to discuss Staying On afterwards.  It is the logical conclusion and deserves to be read in conjunction with the quartet. It has been called a "sequel" (which it is not IMHO), and referred to as the final volume of a "quintet". Whatever its designation,   this is the book that finally brought Paul Scott recognition and the Booker Prize.  To me the book is part of and essential to the work.

We would first have to check whether there is interest and by how many.  We must inform the SL administration and think about scheduling.  True,  I'll be busy in November with That Old Cape Magic but I do feel up to doing Staying On as well,  all things being equal.

Thanks again for your post and you rinterest.


 

[Gumtree]

Hello Raj lovers :

So, we are nearing the end of these four volumes. What a great journey we've had since those first days of discussion. I am always astonished at how much there is in these books and how skilfully Paul Scott has peeled back the onionskins (so to speak) of all the components which make India, India - the British, British, the Raj what it was and what it left behind and then the plethora of individual characters  who are drawn so vividly and so realistically.

I am still surprised by the fact that I have never read these books before and still more surprised that none of my bookie friends has read it either - at most a few have read the first volume or watched the TV series. I keep telling them what they are missing but cannot convince them to read it all.

Next year, I plan to re-read the whole quartet again from beginning to end and again in a leisurely manner. I know there will be so much more to glean from the writing and of course that reading will be in the light of having read through this discussion and Traude's brilliant summaries.

I haven't seen the TV series myself. I intended to do so early after the first volume but then decided I wanted to experience the books first so that my impressions and interpretations were not coloured by the films. Right now I'm in two minds as to whether to watch it at all - but may do so over the summer. (The Aussie summer )

As for Staying On  I'll be ready for it whenever Traude is available. Perhaps it may be best to schedule it for January to allow plenty of time to propose it, draw in other participants and enable them to find a copy etc. But as I said Traude, whenever you're ready, I'm ready.

I can't thank you enough for what you've  given me during this reading.
 

[straudetwo]

Thank you very much, Gumtree.  I'm working on several things, which has never been a problem for me before.  All of a sudden the day just doesn't have enough hours !     But I'm on it !!

[straudetwo]

Here now is the follow-up to # 217,  my last post.
The administration responded positively to my query about the possibility of reading Staying On at some point in the future.  Our labor of love to pick up and broadly explore volumes 2 to 4 was done with permission from the administration, on a voluntary basis and not bound by the traditional discussion format and time limit.

In fact, however, Staying Onn is a new book and therefor subject to  first being suggested, then proposed in the customary manner.  I commit to doing that.

But first we need to talk about the final pages of  the last chapter, Pandora's Box, of Volume Four,   A Division of the Spoils.
You know, of course, that I would not leave you   without thanking you with all my heart for being here with me.  

Here, then, is The Coda, Ranagunj airfield (Ranpur), Saturday August 9, 1947, consisting of a report by Perron and the start of a letter to Sarah.
  
The plane bound for Delhit,  delayed by storms for several hours, came in at midnight.  A handful of passengers boarded with Perron.  The original port and starboard benches of the plane had been replaced by thinly cushioned bucket seats.  About ten passengers were already seated . Passengers from Mayapore. Officers. Officers' wives. A blue-rinsed woman, probably Red Cross. Two beefy-looking men in shorts and shirts turned out to be  English, perhaps from the British-Indian Electric Company; their shirts black with sweat. Perron found a single seat on the port side, stowed his hand luggage, closed his eyes.

How many of the passengers from Mayapore had been in the town in 1942 at the  time of the Bibighar incident?  he wondered.  Perhaps none. The Raj had always led a nomadic existence.  These little airfields, too, were relics of the war; now they merely hastened moves from place to place. Some of the passengers were moving out for the last time.
 
For Perron, take-off in such  an airplane had always involved a moment when the plane squared up and seemed to pause  in a moment of dying intention, and then, in defiance, roared and vibrated. Each time the sensation of being no longer ground-bound came as a shock.  The extraordinary thing had been achieved once again.

Perron had returned to Mirat, saw Nigel and Bronowsky at the place to which the bodies had been taken, and briefly met Ahmed's father, who had impressed him.  Instead of going to Gopalakand he decided to return to Ranpur. No answer came from Sarah to a wire he had sent her offering to come to Pankot, if and when needed. So he called before taking the train back to Ranpur. He reached Sarah's father.  Susan had been hospitalized but would be discharged in a day or two, the Colonel said.  Meanwhile the family was staying on in the Commandant's House because the new Indian Commandant's wife would not join him for a few weeks. Perron refrained from asking what he wanted to ask:   and what then? Where are you going?  Back home?

On the day of his departure for Delhi, Perron decided to look up Hari Kumar.  He showed the taxi driver the little piece of paper on which Nigel had written Hari's address.  The taxi driver demanded more money when they came to the street which, the driver said, led to Hari's address.  Taxis did not go into places like that, he said, and refused to go on.  So Perron proceeded on foot - with growing apprehension. The street was very narrow. Perhaps no Englishman had ever walked down it. The smell of animal ordure and human sweat was overpowering. Several young children followed him. begging. A beggar man and three beggar women joined the children, asking for money.  People called out of dirty-looking shops. Perron became appalled, and frightened. Then he reminded himself that Hari had survived here.

From the midst of this squalor a boy of twelve or fourteen emerged and offered to take him to Hari's address. He was so clean,  wearing neat shorts, a clean white shirt, anxious to be of service, anxious to speak English to an Englishman, that Perron trusted him. He showed him the piece of paper. The boy walked ahead of him, saying : Come, sir, this way, sir,  into a narrow stairway. It led up between two shop fronts to a kind of tenement. The walls were stained and greasy.  Other people were crowding the stairs shouting in a dialect Perron did not understand. The boy stopped at the second landing.

The door was bolted outside and padlocked. A card was pinned to the jamb. Typed on it was H.Kumar. The people on the stairs were shouting at the boy, but the boy said they were telling him Kumar Sahib was out visiting a pupil. His aunt was at the market in the bazaar nd would be be back soon. Kumar Sahib would be back later. The boy said; "Please, sir, meanwhile come and have coffee, clean shop, Brahmin shop."  They went down the stairs, passing through the crowd of inquisitive people. Some of them followed along.  The boy gave up pressing his invitation to have coffee  and offered to take him to the place where a taxi could be found.  Out in the open,  Perron's misgivings disappeared and he came to believe  that the people had merely hoped to keep him there until Hari got back so they could offer him to Hari as a gift.

But it would have been a cruel gift, he mused, wouldn't it?  His very presence was cruel.  When they came to the place where the taxis were, the boy hailed one. Perron took a card out of his wallet and, after hesitating for an instant, handed it to the boy, offering him money. The boy took the card,  refused the  money.   In the taxi back to the cntonment Perron pondered whether he had done the right thing or whether to bitterly regret it.  He consoled himself with the thought that, if Hari ever needed help, he had the little rectangle of pasteboard.   He imagined how, in an hour or so,  the boy would describe the visitor to Hari and show him the card.  The other thing Perron carried in his wallet was the essay by Philoctetes which he had cut out with Nigel's scissors. He had wanted to show it to Hari and say, "You wrote this, didn't you, Hari? He knew the passage at the end by heart.

[i]"I walk home, thinking of another place, of seemingly long endless summers and the shade of different kinds of trees, and then of winters when the branches of the trees were so bare that, recalling them now, it seems inconceivable to me that I looked at them and did not think of the summer just gone, and the spring soon to come, as illusions; as dreams never fulfilled, never to be fulfilled."[/i]

******

It is a story of profound sadness, one of piercing resonance articulated in more than a million words.  A story of love and loss and two couples torn apart, Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar;  Sarah Layton and Ahmed Kasim,  like the return of a fugue to its tonic key.  Wasn't it Yates who called artistic closure "the click of a closing box"?

Classic Urdu poetry plays  an important role the Quartet in the person of the 18th century poet Gaffur, court poet of  the fictional Mirat. He may well be imaginary; at least I failed to find a definitive reference to him. Whether real or imagined, Gaffur is part of the compound image of the story, given voice by his eloquent translator, the White Russian Dmitri Bronowsky.  

(The reader heard of Gaffur first when Lady Manners mentioned a rare edition of his poems to Sarah.  It was given to the Nawab after Susan's wedding in Mirat.  The Count's fare-well present to Perron on the morning of the ill-fated train ride to Ranpur was a personally published  volume of Dmitri's translations  of Gaffur.

The tremendous finale of the story is the last poem Gaffur is purported to have dictated.  Here it is:

Everything means something to you; dying flowers
The different times of year.
The new clothes you wear at the end of Ramadan.
A prince's trust. The way that water flows,
Too impetuous to pause, breaking over
Stones,  rushing toward distant objects,
Places you can't see but which you also flow
Outward to.

Today you slept long. When you woke your old blood stirred.
This too meant something. The girl who woke you
Touched your brow.
She called you Lord. You smiled,
Put up a trembling hand. But she had gone.
As seasons go, as night-flower closes in the day,
As a hawk flies into the sun or as the cheetah runs; as
The deer pauses, sun-dapped in long grass,
But does not stay.

Fleeting moments; these are held a long time in the eye,
The blind eye of the aging poet,
So that even you, Gaffur, can imagine
In this darkening landscape
The bowman lovingly choosing his arrow,
The hawk outpacing the cheetah,
(The fountain splashing lazily in the courtyard),
The girl running with the deer.

******
The image of the "bowman choosing the arrow" also brings up the mythical Philoctetes, the archer.
******

This concludes our discussion.  It has been my great pleasure to be in your company all these months. It will long linger in my memory. I'd like to warmly thank each and everyone of you.  I thank the administration for giving the OK for this project and our peerless techies for their assistance.
Much gratitude all around.

[Frybabe]

Thanks so very much, Traude.

The poem is lovely isn't it? It has a certain melancholy that appeals to me.

I am looking forward to our future discussion of Staying On.

[Gumtree]

BRAVO TRAUDE !!!!!!!!!!!

[straudetwo]

A few last words before this discussion will be archived.

Frybabe and Gumtree,  I am grateful to have had your encouragement to embark on this (perhaps unlikely) project and the knowledge of your presence throughout this discussion. The Raj Quartet is quite possibly the most masterful chronicle of the last five years of British Imperial rule in India and rightfully called a classic.

Absorbing from the first page of the first volume, the story expands in depth and breadth in every volume. There could have been no more appropriate ending than the poem by Gaffur, whose melancholic reflections so perfectly evoked the mood of the story.

I sincerely hope we'll meet again to discuss Staying On. The first step is a suggestion and a query about interest, posted in the Suggestions folder, , to be followed by a proposal ,  a vote, and the hope for a quorum.  Since plans are well under way for the next few months, we may be looking at March of next year.  
Et tempus fugit - and time flies!

Appreciatively,   for the love of books,
Traude