In the past, duffadars like Ramsaran-ji had usually kept their recruits in their own homes until they were shipped out. But this practice had proved unsatisfactory for several reasons: for one, it plunged the would-be migrants into city life, exposing them to all kinds of rumours and temptations. In a place like Calcutta there was never any lack of people to prey upon simple-minded rustics, and in years past, many recruits had run away because of stories told by trouble-makers; some had found other employment in the city and some had gone straight back to their villages. A few duffadars had tried to keep their recruits indoors by locking them in – but only to be faced with riots, fires and break-outs. The city's unhealthy climate was yet another problem, for every year a good number of migrants perished of communicable diseases. From an investor's point of view, each dead, escaped and incapacitated recruit represented a serious loss, and it was increasingly clear that if something wasn't done about the problem, the business would cease to be profitable.
It was the answer to this question that appeared before his eyes that day: a camp had to be built, right here, on the shore of Tolly 's Nullah. As if in a dream, Baboo Nob Kissin saw a cluster of huts, standing there, like the dormitories of an ashram; the premises would have a well, for drinking water, a ghat for bathing, a few trees for shelter, and a paved space where the inmates' food would be cooked and eaten. At the heart of the complex there would be a temple, a small one, to mark the beginning of the journey to Mareech: he could already envision its spire, thrusting through the wreathed smoke of the cremation ghat; he could imagine the migrants, standing clustered at its threshold, gathering together to say their last prayers on their native soil; it would be their parting memory of sacred Jambudwipa, before they were cast out upon the Black Water. They would speak of it to their children and their children's children, who would return to it over generations, to remember and recall their ancestors.
Lalbazar Jail lay upon Calcutta 's crowded centre like a gargantuan fist, holding the city's heart clenched in its grasp. The severity of the jail's exterior was deceptive, however, for behind its massive red-brick façade lay a haphazard warren of courtyards, corridors, offices, barracks and tope-khanas for the storage of weaponry. Prison cells were only a small part of this enormous complex, for despite its name, Lalbazar was not really a centre of incarceration but rather a lock-up where prisoners were held while under trial. Being also the administrative headquarters of the city's constabulary, it was a busy, bustling place, constantly enlivened by the comings and goings of officers and peons, prisoners and darogas, vendors and hurkarus.
Neel's quarters were in the administrative wing of the jail, well removed from the areas where other, less fortunate, prisoners were detained. Two sets of ground-floor offices had been cleared out for him, creating a comfortable apartment with a bedroom, a receiving room, and a small pantry. Neel was also allowed the privilege of having a servant with him during the day, to clean his rooms and serve his meals; as for food and water, everything he ate and drank came from his own kitchens – for his jailers could scarcely permit it to be said that they had obliged the Raja of Raskhali to lose caste even before his case was brought to court. At night the doors of Neel's apartment were lightly guarded, by constables who treated him with the greatest deference; if sleep eluded him, these sentries would keep him entertained with games of dice, cards and pachcheesi. During the day Neel was allowed as many visitors as he wished and the zemindary's gomustas and mootsuddies came so often that he had little difficulty in prosecuting the estate's business from the confines of the jail.
Although grateful for all these concessions, the privilege that mattered most to Neel was one that could not be publicly mentioned: it was the right to use the clean and well-lit outhouse that was reserved for officers. Neel had been brought up to regard his body and its functions with a fastidiousness that bordered almost on the occult: this was largely the doing of his mother, for whom bodily defilement was a preoccupation that permitted neither peace nor rest. Although a quiet, gentle and loving woman in some ways, the usages of her caste and class were, for her, not just a set of rules and observances, but the very core of her being. Neglected by her husband, and living sequestered within a gloomy wing of the palace, she had devoted her considerable intelligence to the creation of fantastically elaborate rituals of cleanliness and purification: it was not enough that she wash her hands for a full half-hour, before and after every meal – she had also to make sure that the vessel from which the water was poured was properly cleaned, as also the bucket in which it had been fetched from the well; and so on. Her most potent fears centred upon the men and women who emptied the palace's outhouses and disposed of its sewage: these sweepers and cleaners of night-soil she regarded with such loathing that staying out of their way became one of her besetting preoccupations. As for the sweepers' tools – jharus made from palm-leaf bristles – neither sword nor serpent inspired a deeper unease in her than these objects, the sight of which could haunt her for days. These fears and anxieties created a way of life that was too unnatural to be long sustained and she died when Neel was only twelve years old, leaving him a legacy of extreme fastidiousness in regard to his own person. So it was that for Neel, no aspect of his captivity held greater terror than the thought of sharing a shit-hole with dozens of common prisoners.
To get to the officers' outhouse, Neel had to pass through several corridors and courtyards, some of which afforded glimpses of the jail's other inmates – often they seemed to be fighting for light and air, with their noses pressed against the bars, like trapped rats. These sightings of the hardships suffered by other prisoners gave Neel a keen sense of the consideration that he himself had been afforded: it was clear that the British authorities were intent on reassuring the public that the Raja of Raskhali was being treated with the utmost fairness. So slight indeed were the inconveniences of Neel's imprisonment at Lalbazar that he could almost have imagined himself to be on holiday, were it not for the ban on visits from women and children. Yet even this was no great loss, since Neel would not, in any case, have permitted his wife or son to defile themselves by entering the jail. Elokeshi, on the other hand, he would have been glad to receive, but there had been no news of her since the time of Neel's arrest: it was thought that she had slipped out of the city, to avoid being questioned by the police. Neel could not rightfully complain about so well-judged an absence.
The ease of his incarceration was such that Neel was hard put to take his legal difficulties very seriously. His relatives among Calcutta 's gentry had told him that his was to be a show-trial, intended to persuade the public of the even-handedness of British justice: he was sure to be acquitted, or let off lightly, with some token punishment. They were insistent in assuring him that he had no cause for anxiety: great efforts were being mounted on his behalf by many prominent citizens, they said; everyone in his circle of acquaintance was extending their reach as far as they possibly could: between all of them they would almost certainly be able to move some important levers, maybe even in the Governor-General's Council. In any event, it was unthinkable that a member of their class would be treated as a common criminal.