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By Root 921 0

Many islands. The British sarkar was happy to let him have them. Gosaba, Rangabelia, Satjelia — these were all his. And to these he later added this island you’re standing on: Lusibari. S’Daniel wanted his newly bought lands to be called Andrewpur, after Saint Andrew of Scotland — a poor man who, having neither silver nor gold, found the money to create it. But that name never took; people grew used to speaking of these islands as Hamilton-abad. And as the population grew, villages sprouted and S’Daniel gave them names. One village became Shobnomoskar, ‘Welcome to All,’ and another became Rajat Jubilee, to mark the silver jubilee of some king or other. And to some he gave the names of his relatives — that’s why we have here a Jamespur, an Annpur and an Emilybari. Lusibari was another such.”

“And who lived in those places?”

“No one — in the beginning. Remember, at that time there was nothing but forest here. There were no people, no embankments, no fields. Just kādā ār bādā, mud and mangrove. At high tide most of the land vanished underwater. And everywhere you looked there were predators — tigers, crocodiles, sharks, leopards.”

“So why did people come, then?”

“For the land, Kanai. What else? This was at a time when people were so desperate for land that they were willing to sell themselves in exchange for a bigha or two. And this land here was in their own country, not far from Calcutta: they didn’t need to take a boat to Burma or Malaya or Fiji or Trinidad. And what was more, it was free.”

“So they came?”

“By the thousand. Everyone who was willing to work was welcome, S’Daniel said, but on one condition. They could not bring all their petty little divisions and differences. Here there would be no Brahmins or Untouchables, no Bengalis and no Oriyas. Everyone would have to live and work together. When the news of this spread, people came pouring in, from northern Orissa, from eastern Bengal, from the Santhal Parganas. They came in boats and dinghies and whatever else they could lay their hands on. When the waters fell the settlers hacked at the forest with their dás, and when the tides rose they waited out the flood on stilt-mounted platforms. At night they slept in hammocks that were hung so as to keep them safe from the high tide.

“Think of what it was like: think of the tigers, crocodiles and snakes that lived in the creeks and nalas that covered the islands. This was a feast for them. They killed hundreds of people. So many were killed that S’Daniel began to give out rewards to anyone who killed a tiger or crocodile.”

“But what did they kill them with?”

“With their hands. With knives. With bamboo spears. Whatever they could find at hand. Do you remember Horen, the boatman who brought us here from Canning?”

“Yes.” Kanai nodded.

“His uncle Bolai killed a tiger once while he was out fishing. S’Daniel gave him two bighas of land right here in Lusibari. For years afterward, Bolai was the hero of the island.”

“But what was the purpose of all this?” said Kanai. “Was it money?”

“No,” said Nirmal. “Money S’Daniel already had. What he wanted was to build a new society, a new kind of country. It would be a country run by cooperatives, he said. Here people wouldn’t exploit each other and everyone would have a share in the land. S’Daniel spoke with Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Thakur and many other bujuwa nationalists. The bourgeoisie all agreed with S’Daniel that this place could be a model for all of India; it could be a new kind of country.”

“But how could this be a country?” said Kanai in disbelief. “There’s nothing here — no electricity, no roads, nothing.”

Nirmal smiled. “All that was to come,” he said. “Look.” He pointed to a discolored wire that ran along the wall. “See. S’Daniel had made arrangements for electricity. In the beginning there was a huge generator, right next to the school. But after his death it broke down and no one ever replaced it.”

Kneeling beside a table, Nirmal pointed to another set of wires. “Look. There were even telephone lines here. Long before phones had come to Calcutta, S’Daniel