The deception was so successful that she succeeded in concealing her wardrobe until her departure was just a week away. But one morning Shernaz and Behroze came over with their children, to help with the packing, and one of their little girls somehow managed to get hold of the key to the almirah in which Shireen had hidden her new clothes.
A shriek rang through the apartment and suddenly it was as if Aladdin’s cave had appeared in Shireen’s bedroom: everyone ran to the almirah and stood staring in disbelief at the hats, shoes and pelisses that were stored within.
After that Shireen could not refuse to show her daughters and granddaughters how she looked in her new clothes. Yielding to their entreaties, she changed into a complete ensemble of memsahib clothing — dress, pelisse and hat — and paraded defiantly through her bedroom, challenging them to laugh.
But instead their eyes widened with a wonder that was not untinged with envy.
‘Oh Mama!’ cried Shernaz, who had never addressed Shireen in that way before.
‘What do you mean Mama?’ said Shireen. ‘Since when have you called me that?’
Shernaz looked startled: ‘Did I call you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then it’s because you don’t look like our Mumma any more.’
‘What do I look like then?’
‘I don’t know. You look different — younger.’
Then Shernaz burst into tears, taking everyone by surprise. After that no one else could stay dry-eyed either.
For the last two days before the Hind’s departure, Shernaz and Behroze moved into Shireen’s apartment with their children. This was meant to make things easier for Shireen, but of course it did nothing of the kind; still, she welcomed the extra work because it kept her occupied.
On the evening before Shireen’s embarkation, her brothers organized a special jashan at home to seek blessings for her voyage and to wish her godspeed. Shireen was a little nervous about the event, but it went off very well. Every prominent Parsi family in the city sent a representative, including the Readymonies and Dadiseths; even Mrs Jejeebhoy dropped by for a few minutes. Better still, the jashan was attended by several members of the Parsi Panchayat — this was a great relief to Shireen for she had not quite rid herself of the fear that the community’s highest body might declare her an outcast. This way it was almost as if they had given their imprimatur to her voyage.
Next morning Shireen arrived at the dock, with her daughters and their families, to find that a large crowd had already assembled there. Many of Rosa’s relatives had also come to see her off and Vico had hired a band, to play rousing tunes.
The captain of the Hind had been alerted to Shireen’s arrival and was waiting for her with a bouquet in his hands. A tall sunburned man with muttonchop whiskers, he led her personally to her stateroom, which was in the roundhouse, on the starboard side. It was actually a suite of cabins, a small one to sleep in, and another slightly larger one, with both a sitting and a dining area. Attached was a pantry with a bunk for Rosa.
‘I hope it’s to your satisfaction, madam?’
Shireen could not have hoped for anything better. ‘It’s wonderful!’ she said.
After the captain had left, Shireen’s daughters and grandchildren helped her settle in. In a very short while the cabins were arranged to the satisfaction of everyone except Shireen herself — she could not rid herself of the feeling that something was missing. She remembered just before it came time for all visitors to go ashore. Plunging into a trunk she brought out a toran — an embroidered fringe of the kind that hung around the doorways of all Parsi homes.
Shernaz, Behroze and their children helped her drape the toran around the entrance hatch. When it was properly affixed, they crowded into the gangway to look at it.
Ekdum gher javu che, said Shernaz with a sigh. It’s just like home now, isn’t it?
Yes, said Shireen. It is.
Zachary’s initiation into the opium trade began on Calcutta’s Strand Road, which adjoined the busiest section of the Hooghly River. Pointing to six sailing vessels that were anchored nearby, Baboo Nob Kissin explained that the opium fleet had just arrived from Bihar, with the year’s first consignment from the East India Company’s opium factories in Patna and Ghazipur. This year’s crop had exceeded all previous records; despite the troubles in China, production had continued to increase at a tremendous pace in the Company’s territories.
‘Opium is pouring into the market like monsoon flood,’ declared Baboo Nob Kissin.
They watched for a while as the drug was unloaded. Each of the cargo ships had a small flotilla of sampans, paunchways and lighters attached, like sucklings to a teat. Under the scrutiny of armed overseers and burkandazes, teams of coolies were transferring the chests of opium from the ships to the brick-red godowns that lined the riverbank.
Each chest held two maunds — roughly one hundred and sixty pounds — of opium, said Baboo Nob Kissin; the cost to the Company, for each chest, was between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty rupees. Of this the farmer received perhaps a third if he was lucky: there were so many middlemen — sudder mahtoes, gayn mahtoes, pykars, gomustas — to be paid off that he often ended up earning less than he had spent on his poppy crop. The Company on the other hand would earn eight to ten times the cost-price of each chest when they were sold off at auction — somewhere between one thousand and fifteen hundred rupees, or five hundred to seven hundred Spanish dollars.
Then the chests would travel eastwards, to China and elsewhere, but even before they went under the auctioneer’s hammer, they would pass through another market, an informal one — and it was at this very unusual bazar that Zachary’s initiation into the trade was to begin.
Plunging into a side-street, Baboo Nob Kissin led Zachary to Tank Square, which was within hailing distance of the Strand. This was the heart of official Calcutta: at the centre of the square lay a rectangular ‘tank’ of fresh water; overlooking it was the East India Company’s headquarters, a great pile of a building, honeycombed with columns and arches and crowned with elaborate tiaras of wrought iron.
On the other side of the tank lay the Opium Exchange: a large but unremarkable building with the reassuring look of a reputable bank. This was where the East India Company’s opium auctions were conducted, said Baboo Nob Kissin: the next one would be held there tomorrow morning — but for now the building was empty, and its heavy wooden doors were locked and under guard.
The bazar that they were heading for was in a dank, dirty little gali behind the Opium Exchange. Mud and dung squelched under their feet as they walked towards it, pushing past ambling cows and loitering vendors. The marketplace consisted of a small cluster of lamplit stalls: turbaned men sat on the cloth-covered counters with ledgers lying open on their crossed legs.
To Zachary’s surprise there were no goods on display: he was at a loss to understand what exactly was being bought and sold — and it didn’t help much when Baboo Nob Kissin explained that this was not a bazar for opium as such; rather it was a place in which people traded in something unseen and unknown: the prices that opium would fetch in the future, near or distant. In this bazar there were only two commodities and both were pieces of paper — chitties or letters. One kind was called tazi-chitty or ‘fresh letter’; the other kind was mandi-chitty — ‘bazar letter’. Buyers who thought that the price of opium would go up at the next auction would buy tazi-chitties; those who thought it would go down would buy mandi-chitties. But similar chitties could be written to cover any period of time — a month, a year or five years. Every day, said Baboo Nob Kissin, lakhs, crores, millions of rupees passed through this bazar — there was more wealth here than in any market in Asia.