We are forced, very much against our will, to repeat what these slander-ers have to say: that his cousin, whose property had so far been spared, finally fell into his trap, and that to feed the Brahmins for having eaten onion, Shyam was forced to sell his land to Mangaraj. These same people add that the women in Mangaraj’s very own household regularly send Champa to get onions from the market. Now, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Champa does indeed buy onions at the market. Do we have any proof that anyone eats them? True, according to the Laws of Manu, eating onions is wrong, but where in the scriptures is purchasing them prohibited? These critics are sullying the reputation of the women of a respectable family. We simply refuse to respond to such charges.

Chapter Two

A Self-Made Man

A poor man’s son, the story goes, Mangaraj was orphaned at the age of seven. His father was so poor there was not enough money to pay for his funeral rites. Nor was there enough for new straw to thatch the roof, and so the walls of the house collapsed.

Mangaraj’s childhood, his education, his entry into the real world, were full of strange and wondrous happenings. Indeed, the life of a truly great man is never without miracles. To recount them all would take a lot of paper and a lot of time, and we have learned the importance of thrift from no less a teacher than our Mangaraj himself. We follow here a principle of economics laid down by the great pundit Benjamin Franklin, which we interpret thus: it is easier to buy paper from the market than to put it to proper use. In telling our story, we will therefore be guided by the economic principles of Mangaraj, and highlight only the most valuable and salient points.

Mangaraj’s landholding, his zamindari, was known as Fatepur Sarsandha. It comprised 28 batis—560 acres—of land guaranteed rent-free, and 15 batis plus 27 scattered acres—327 acres total—of taxable, forfeited land. Of these 27 scattered acres, ownership of 7 was still in dispute before the courts. The zamindari was assessed at five thousand rupees a year.

Some say Mangaraj had given out, on loan, no less than forty to fifty thousand rupees in cash. But then to ordinary folk, important people seem larger than life. Our best estimate is that these transactions did not exceed fifteen thousand rupees. It goes against our principles to tell lies, and our estimate is based on information supplied by a peon in the Income Tax Department. As for loans of grain, the papers have not been sorted for the last twenty years and we are unable to put an exact figure on them.

From the accounts submitted by the man in charge of the granary, however, it is known that Mangaraj collected more than two thousand maunds of rice last year.

Mangaraj’s house had five large wings. His three sons occupied three of these, and he, his wife, and their youngest daughter, Malati, lived in another. The outermost wing was the kacheri, his office, whose roof was supported by five large wooden beams, on which were carved images of tigers, elephants, cats, the divine couple Radha and Krishna, and monkeys. On the walls were pictures of lotus and kusuma flowers, garlands of malati flowers, and the events of the legendary battle between Rama and Ravana, with their armies of monkeys and demons—all painted in vivid blues, whites, reds, yellows, and browns. Somewhere in Rajasthan, on seeing an image of a nude woman, Tod Sahib came to the conclusion that all women in ancient India went about naked.

We could have dispelled the Sahib’s ignorance by showing him these pictures on Mangaraj’s wall. The fair-skinned goddess Radha, wearing a black dotted skirt, surrounded by her similarly dressed companions, would have been enough to cure the Sahib’s ignorance and error. To paint these pictures, it had not been necessary to bring in an artist from another land; our Champa had done all this fine work herself. And she was a rare kind of artist indeed: the animals and birds she painted are not to be found in any ordinary zoo, such as the one in Calcutta.

Just behind Mangaraj’s house, there was a large orchard opening onto a big pond, with coconut trees planted all around its edge, and banana, jack-fruit, mango, and ou trees further behind.

A fence of young bamboo surrounded the orchard like a fortress wall. Few people are as selfless and altruistic as Mangaraj: even the market in Gobindapur owed its existence and prosperity to him. Without his orchard’s bounty of fruits and vegetables—coconuts, bananas, brinjals, pumpkins, green chilies, and so on the market would have presented a much sorrier sight. Nor was anyone allowed to put his vegetables up for sale until the produce from the zamindar’s orchard had all been sold. That was of course as it should be. Would it have been fair to sell inferior goods before high-quality produce? Besides, the market belonged to the zamindar, and the gifts of pumpkins, brinjals, and bananas he received on festive occasions, such as the Oriya New Year, all went straight to the market.

It is recounted that after the construction of the Great Wall of China had been completed, the emperor rounded up all the history writers and put them to death, lest they should leave behind a record of the expenses incurred—for which act we consider the emperor a self-effacing man.