River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [157]
Of course Asha-didi’s parents knew exactly what he was up to, and they were none too pleased – partly because they guessed from the boy’s speech that he was a boat-fellow by origin; and partly because they had long had another, more suitable, groom in mind for their eldest daughter. But despite all that, Asha-didi’s father had decided to take him in anyway, and not out of charity either, but only because he was a shrewd merchandiser who prided himself on his business acumen. He reckoned that the young sailor might have something valuable to offer, something that was vital to any shipchandler’s business: the ability to take a boat out on the river, to vie for the custom of newly arrived ships. Until then, he had handled this job himself, but he was no boatman, and had always had to hire Hooghly River khalasis to operate his sampan, being regularly cheated in the process. Could it be that this young fellow would know how to manage the boat, on the crowded river? The answer was by no means self-evident, for the sampans of the Hooghly were quite different from the craft from which they took their name: the ‘three-board’ saam-pan of the Pearl River. Being upcurved both in stem and stern, the Hooghly version of the vessel was more like a canoe in shape and handled quite differently.
But Ah Bao was born to the water, and rare indeed was the boat that could defeat him: the sampan posed no challenge to him and he conquered it easily. Nor was oarsmanship the only useful skill that he had learnt on the Pearl River: the ghat-serangs and riverfront thugs who tried to put the squeeze on him found that he had dealt with their like all his life; and those who yelled jeers and taunts at him –Chin-chin-cheenee! – discovered that he was no stranger to budmashing, barnshooting and galee-gooler. He quickly gained the respect of the other boatmen, and became a familiar figure on the waterfront: people called him Baburao.
Soon Baburao was so indispensable to the family business that no one could remember why he had been considered an unsuitable groom for Eldest Daughter: objections evaporated, messages went back and forth between the families and matters were arranged to everyone’s satisfaction. After the banquet, which was held on a budgerow, the couple settled into a room in the family compound and that was where Asha-didi gave birth to five of their nine children.
Although Baburao settled into his new life with gusto, Calcutta was not to him what it was to his wife. He had grown up on the vessel from which his family made their living; a junk that plied the coastal trade routes around Canton, with his father as its laodah. Theirs was a small craft, and even though it was neither speedy nor especially comfortable, to Baburao it was home. When it came to his ears that his father was thinking of selling the junk he did not hesitate for a moment: letters and gifts travelled regularly between Calcutta and Canton by way of the sea traffic between the cities; Baburao went from ship to ship until he found an acquaintance who could be trusted to persuade his father to hold off for just a little while longer. The money for passages was raised with the help of the community and a few months later the couple set sail for China with their children.
After the move, it was Asha-didi who found herself in the position of having to communicate with her family through