Growing wealth led to the swift transformation of a trading
settlement into a flourishing town. Calcutta came to be divided
into a “white town”, with tree-lined avenues and
spacious bungalows, and a “native town”, pervaded
by dingy lanes and makeshift dwellings. It was this aspect
which evoked Kipling’s ironic comment: “Thus the
mid-day halt of Charnock more’s the pity! Grew a city.”
Despite the geographical separation between these two vastly
differing worlds, the sahibs openly imitated the lifestyle
of Indian rajas and nawabs. Their homes boasted retinues of
servants, they smoked the Hubble-bubble, rode on palanquins
or even adopted various Indian superstitions and beliefs.
To bridge the racial and cultural divide between the rulers
and the ruled were the banian, or traders, who served as middlemen
for the sahibs, mediating between the newly-arrived and the
culture and practices of Indian Society that the British had
conquered. When an employee-or “Writer”- of the
English East India Company, docked in Calcutta, he would have
been a complete stranger to Bengali society, unacquainted
with the language or mores of the culture. The banian was
there to provide services and procure niceties. He acted as
interpreter, arranged for a house for the Sahib, negotiated
with servants, made capital available for the Sahib’s
initial expenditure and private trade, and even organized
a “sleeping dictionary”(a euphemism for a native
mistress). |
