He decided to be brave. He stepped up to them and said: Excuse me. Could you tell me where I might get a good view of Professor C. V. Raman?
The young men looked at each other in puzzlement. One of them said politely: Could you say that again, please? He was in European clothes and he had gold-rimmed spectacles and lustrous, pomaded hair, parted down the middle. He shall remain unnamed, for he was later to rise to prominence in Congress politics and achieve renown for his venality. He may still be lurking in some Calcutta suburb today.
Balaram cleared his throat: I was only asking if you could tell me where I might get a nice view of Professor C. V. Raman.
The puzzlement on their faces deepened. It occurred to Balaram that they could not understand his Dhaka accent. Stammering with embarrassment he repeated himself, very slowly.
There was a snort of laughter. Middle Parting silenced it with a wave. He said to Balaram, gravely fingering his chin: But have you bought a ticket?
A ticket?
Oh, yes. And they’re quite expensive. Anyway, why do you want to see C. V. Raman? Usually villagers want to see the High Court and the Museum first. I didn’t know C. V. Raman had appeared on the programme.
I’m from Dhaka, sir, Balaram said.
Oh, I see, said Middle Parting. Same thing. Anyway, wouldn’t you like to see the Museum and the High Court first?
Not right now, I think, Balaram said, edging away. Later perhaps. I was on my way to see …
No, wait. Middle Parting caught his elbow. But you must, you must see the Museum. How can you be in Presidency College if you haven’t seen the Museum? He winked at the others and turned back to Balaram: And how can you see the Museum without Museum practice?
There was a snort of laughter. Balaram looked at him in surprise: Museum practice? What is that?
Middle Parting rubbed his chin. We’ll show you, he said. Free, since you’re new, though most people charge quite a lot. I hope you’re grateful.
Balaram found himself being led into the middle of the quadrangle. Middle Parting lifted Balaram’s right hand, palm outwards, and explained: That’s how you have to stand when you look at the images of the Buddha. Naturally you have to take your kurta and vest off as well. Now, please take them off.
Balaram tried to wrench his hand free. Later perhaps, he said. Maybe some other day. Thank you for so much information, but now I must go.
Take it off, Middle Parting said again. He twisted Balaram’s hand a little. Balaram threw a desperate glance around him. The others were standing in a circle around him. There was no escape. Fumbling, weak-kneed with shame, he took his kurta and vest off. His chest was pathetically bare and thin. He looked at his feet, trying not to hear their laughter.
That’s right, said Middle Parting, still grave. And then, when you go into the Greek room, you have to take the rest off as well.
There was a chorus of laughter and cheers. Balaram, horror-struck, struggled to speak, but his throat was as dry as baked clay. He managed to stammer hoarsely: I think I’ll leave Greece for next year. Thank you very much, and now, if I may …
For next year? Middle Parting pulled a face of mock-surprise. How can you be in Presidency if you leave Greece for next year?
Balaram began to back away. Middle Parting waved to the others, and with cheerful whoops they lunged at him, snatching at his dhoti. Balaram lurched as the cloth was ripped away. He fought off their hands with a desperate strength, struggling to keep a few shreds around his waist. There was only one thought in his mind: that his drawers were dirty and even death would be better than standing in the middle of that great quadrangle in dirty drawers.
It was lucky, he said afterwards, that there is so much cloth to a dhoti.
Still, it was just a matter of time. He was losing fistfuls of cloth every second.
It was at that precise moment, when Balaram was clinging to his last few wisps of white cotton, that Gopal appeared. It took Gopal no more than a glance to understand what was happening. He ran across the courtyard and flung himself at Middle Parting and his friends. Heaving with all the strength in his shoulders, he pushed two of them aside and spread his arms across Balaram. He was very angry. He shouted, his spectacles tottering on the edge of his nose: Leave him alone. Why can’t you leave these new students alone? Why don’t you go into the streets if you want to fight?
Middle Parting, laughing, dusted his hands: All right, you can play Mother to him now. Take him to see C. V. Raman. But be careful. Don’t leave him outside the laboratory. They might pour him into a test-tube. He threw his arms around his friends’ shoulders and they went away, still shaking with laughter.
Balaram stooped and spread the few shreds of cloth left to him carefully over his drawers. Gopal turned to him eagerly: C. V. Raman? Are you interested in C. V. Raman’s work? Balaram did not answer. He barely heard Gopal. He was too angry and confused.
But when at last his head cleared, and he understood Gopal’s question and sensed his elation, he knew he had a friend.
Later that day, Gopal came to fetch Balaram to take him out for a cup of tea. With him was another new student, a slight, bespectacled, shy boy from Lucknow whose two prominent front teeth had already tagged him with the name of Dantu. They went down the road to Puntiram’s sweetshop. Puntiram’s was not then the neon-and-plastic marvel it is now: it was a small place, a little tumbledown, but quiet. A good place to talk.
They ate rosogollas, sweet and spongy as only Puntiram’s could make them, and drank rich milky tea, and Gopal told them about a society he and a few others in the Eden Hindu Hostel had recently founded. Formally it was known as the Society for the Dissemination of Science and Rationalism among the People of Hindoostan, but usually they simply called themselves the Rationalists.
Balaram and Dantu pushed their dues — eight annas each — across the table the moment they had finished their tea.
Later, Gopal and Balaram were often to argue about the circumstances of their meeting. Gopal claimed that it was an accident of sorts, a mere lucky chance. Balaram argued that it could not have been. It was too apt. They would have met anyway, for the hostel was divided into five wards and Balaram and Gopal happened to be in the same ward. But no chance encounter would have been able to capture the appropriateness of their first meeting. Wasn’t the Rationalists’ motto ‘Reason rescues Man from Barbarity’?
A few days later Gopal lent Balaram a book he had recently bought at Chakerbutty & Sons in College Street. It was a copy of Mrs Devonshire’s translation of René Vallery-Radot’s Life of Pasteur.
He was to regret lending Balaram that book. A year or so later he could not have said whether he was more bewildered or hurt when the very Balaram he had rescued from barbarity, his closest friend, turned his own book, bought with his own carefully saved money, into a weapon against him.
That year Gopal was elected president of the Rationalists. He called a meeting soon after the election. It was an important meeting, for a Science Association had recently been founded in the hostel and many of the Rationalists had been tempted to change their membership. Gopal was anxious to meet the threat head-on.
The difference, Gopal told the Rationalists, between the Science Association and their own society was that they did not consider science alone, something people pursued in the seclusion of laboratories, important in itself. He himself was studying not science but English literature. Their aim was the application of rational principles to everything around them — to their own lives, to society, to religion, to history. It didn’t matter what. That was what made the Rationalists unique.