It is unusually dull for November. He has his camera around his neck. Perhaps he might get some interesting photos of Ross Island in this uncertain light. Unseasonal clouds darken the sky, creating the impression that it is late in the evening at three in the afternoon. Inside the shop, Shyam turns on the lights and the sign outside lights up – Mattoo Tribal Art, with the last “t” still blinking after it was repaired last month.
Mattoo can see the American on the other side of Rina Road, standing outside Bose’s shop, watching him. A strange man, stubborn and persistent, yet lacking the casual confidence he has seen in American tourists, and now tailing him to ensure the meeting with Subhash does take place.
Around the clocktower he loses sight of the American. The park is deserted. A light rain has begun to fall. A sign to his left announces that the sound-and-light show in Cellular Jail – in which it is blithely claimed that the Andamans are named after Lord Hanuman – has been cancelled, perhaps on account of the rain. Half a mile away, he can see the low-lying hills of Ross Island, dark green against the horizon, edges lit by the sun setting behind him. He sits on the bench that is their usual meeting place. The jetty is closed. Tourists wanting to go to Ross will probably have to wait until it is clear tomorrow. The sea is calm. Port Blair is a magnificent harbour, well protected from the winds, which is indeed why Archibald Blair chose this as the site of his first settlement 250 years ago.
“Bipin Da, zindabad!”
The slogan shatters Mattoo’s reverie. A crowd has formed next to the jetty, obscuring the view of Ross Island from the bench. It is a public function, and the speaker is the Member of Parliament from the Andamans. There is some more sloganeering. The MP is completing his second term, hoping to start a third one, and has plunged into electioneering early, because travel over the islands involves a jumble of short-hop flights, ferries, jeep rides and treks, and he needs to reach every one of the half million constituents, mostly Bengali and Tamil settlers, who now live in large numbers as far north as Diglipur, an area the British considered singularly unhealthy in the last century.
Bipin Kanti Ghosh, the MP, is too loud for the occasion and yells as if he were not speaking into a microphone and his own lungs must carry his declarations all the way to Aberdeen Bazar. Mattoo notes with some amusement that he speaks in broken Hindi, which is no one’s first language in the crowd, not even his own, because Bipin Da is from Bengal.
“The honourable prime minister will grace us with his presence in Port Blair next month. When was the last time a PM came to our islands? The flight from Delhi is four hours – that is too long for most ministers. This PM is different. His love for the people of the Andamans and his affection for the tribals knows no bounds. Do you know why he is coming? He is coming to honour Netaji Subhash Bose, who stood right here outside our own Gymkhana to liberate our country from the British seventy-five years ago. In his honour, the prime minister will raise the tricolour outside the Gymkhana and rename three islands. I will not let the old names pass my lips, and I will not give you the new names. Let the PM announce those in his own voice. But I can tell you that the names are drawn from our culture, our history, and our national struggle.”
Bipin Kanti Ghosh pauses to survey the crowd, and casts a meaningful look at the lone reporter from The Daily Telegrams.
“We are more than 1000 kilometres from Kolkata, and twice as far from Delhi. The newspapers there do not report on our demands, but here is what I wish for our people. Everyone knows that the name ‘Andaman’ comes from ‘Handuman’, used by the Malays, who got the word from our own Lord Hanuman. I know what the other parties will say – the MP is falsifying history – but you can read the English explorers who claimed this a long time ago. So I am asking the prime minister, and please print this, why not name the whole island chain after Hanuman? If we seek a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the place of Ram’s birth, why not a temple to his most devoted servant, Hanuman, in the islands that are his place of birth?”
This is a new claim, thinks Mattoo – that the Andamans are the birthplace of Hanuman – and he is perhaps watching the birth of a new political movement. The other claim, that “Andaman comes from Handuman”, is an old one, if of dubious origin. Two thousand years ago, Ptolemy referred to the islands as Insulae fonae fortunae. Arab travellers in the ninth century were aware of the islands, as were Chinese and Japanese sailors. Four hundred years after them, Marco Polo called the islands Angamanain, a name derived from the Arabic. The English explorer referenced by the MP was perhaps Portman, who may have created the confusion by citing a Malay origin story that the MP is only too happy to cite. Whatever the truth, “Andaman comes from Hanuman” is repeated ad nauseam in the sound-and-light show in Cellular Jail.
“Our country is making great strides under the PM. Given another term, he shall wipe out poverty, fear and corruption, and restore India’s image in the eyes of the world. So, why not also reclaim our history in these islands by abolishing colonial names altogether? Why must he restrict himself to renaming three small rocks in the sea? There are more than 500 islands in Andaman and Nicobar, all named by the English. You have heard of Rose Island, but did you know that Hugh Rose was the man who defeated the Rani of Jhansi, or that Havelock Island is named after the British general who defeated Nana Sahib in Lucknow? Seventy years after Independence, why must our country have islands named after colonialists who captured and jailed our patriots? I will submit a petition to the PM that Rose Island be renamed after Rani Jhansi and Havelock Island after Nana Sahib. Do you stand with me?”
The crowd has lost interest. The profusion of English names and historical tidbits is of no interest to them, and a squall appears to be forming over Ross Island. The MP winds down his speech, raises the petition high to display it dramatically, and departs. The crowd disperses.
Afforded a clear view of Ross, Mattoo takes photos of the dark clouds descending on the island. It is a strange day, with sun and rain battling each other.
“Doctor Mattoo, still taking photos.”
It is Subhash, and the use of English as well as “doctor” is his way of reminding the world that Mattoo is not one. He carries an umbrella and is in shorts, a habit he acquired two years ago because, he claims, it makes tourists approach him with questions, leading to business. What that business might be is never defined, but Mattoo knows that much of it, or all of it, involves hoodwinking gullible visitors with some version of a “tribal experience”. Subhash spends much time at the jetty, looking for Bengalis, the easiest to snare because he can speak their language, or Hindi speakers – his Hindi is passable – or, best of all, foreigners, for whom his halting English is no bar because he promises them “real-life Jarawa, real-life Onge, first-class view from a two-metre distance you can even touch.”
Mattoo taps his camera, speaking in the patois of Hindi and English he uses when with Subhash.
“It was raining, so I thought I’d take some pictures of Ross Island. Sit down.”
Subhash does not sit. He has put on weight, Mattoo notices, and is out of breath from having walked less than a quarter kilometre to the jetty.
“Tell me. Who is that American man?”
“A boy, only a boy,” says Subhash. “I thought he was Chinese until he said he was from America. What do I care where a customer is from? He brings business.”
“Which is?” Subhash smiles.
“I will come to that. First, tell me, Mattoo Sahib, how are you? How is your health?”
Mattoo knows this is a ruse. When they first ran into each other a decade ago, Subhash had co-opted Mattoo into his “tribal experience” scheme. Mattoo’s job was to accompany tourists, usually from Europe because Indians would not pay as much, past the Jirkatang check post into the Jarawa Reserve and lie in wait, in the hope that a Jarawa tribal would show himself. A sighting was rare, and the Bush Police glared at him. Even if no tribal was sighted, Mattoo was expected to deliver a lecture on “Jarawa art and culture” during the trip, thus giving the tourists at least a portion of what they had paid for. Subhash never failed to remind him that “Doctor Mattoo, you will know what to say in English gitpit.” A few times, Mattoo even took a boat with Subhash’s clients to the island of Little Andaman to repeat the experience inside the Onge Reserve. During all these trips, only once had an Onge man been seen, leading to a frenzy in the group of ten, with much clicking of cameras, jostling and pushing, to the point where the Onge man took fright and disappeared into the Reserve.
Mattoo was always on edge during these trips. Anything could happen. There were aggressive tourists, there were rowdy teenagers trying to impress someone. Anyone could overstep the bounds he defined for them when they started. As a self-appointed disciple of Verrier Elwin, the English priest who had found a calling as a lifelong friend to tribals more than a hundred years ago, he knew they were trespassing in the tribe’s home, but Subhash gave him 500 rupees for each trip, and after losing his Anthropological Survey of India job he needed the money.
Fortunately, the human safaris ended when the Andaman Trunk Road going through the Reserve came to be heavily policed. Photography is now prohibited and all buses and cars must pass through, without stopping, in a convoy. Signs and announcements forbid any contact with the Jarawa. Even Subhash dare not flout the law so openly, so that income stream has dried up for him, to his chagrin and Mattoo’s relief.
Excerpted with permission from Island, Sujit Saraf, Speaking Tiger Books.
