Great were the preparations for the shraddha ceremony of Baburam Babu. What with the noise of arranging the shorash and the silver presents to be given to the pandits, the smell of the sweetmeats, the buzzing of hornets, the pungent smoke from wet wood, and the continual stream of things arriving for use on the occasion, the whole house was full of confusion and bustle. Brahmans of the poorer classes, whether connected with family worship, or with shop or bazar accounts, all wearing silk clothes, and with Ganges clay on their foreheads, were continually crowding in for invitations to the shraddha ceremony. Of the Tarkavagishas, Vidyaratnas, Nyayalankars, Bachaspatis, and Vidyasagars, all learned and celebrated pandits, there was no end. Sages and gurus were continually arriving. It was like the festival of the village leather-seller, on the death of a cow.
The day of the ceremony arrived. Pandits from all parts of the country had come for the assembly usual on such occasions[40], and seated near them were their relatives, kinsmen and friends. Before them were arranged presents of every description and for all comers; horses, palkis, brass dishes, broadcloth, oil vessels, and hard cash. On one side of them the processional singing was in progress, and in the midst of the singers was Becharam Babu enthusiastically absorbed in the music. Outside the house were collected together Brahmans of lesser degree, pedigree reciters, mendicants, sannyasis and beggars. Thakchacha, not having sufficient effrontery to sit down in the assembly, was roaming about in the crowd.
The venerable Pandits were taking snuff and conversing together on subjects connected with the shástras. One of their characteristics is the difficulty they find in carrying on a discussion at their great meetings calmly and composedly: some element of discord is always sure to arise. One of the pandits introduced a portion of the Nyaya shástras for discussion:— “Smoke is the effect of fire, and this is a different substance from a water-jar.” A pandit from Orissa thereupon remarked, “The water-jar is itself distinct from a mountain.” “What is this, my friend, that you are saying?” asked a pandit from Kashigoya, “you surely have not paid proper attention to the sentence: he who regards a water-jar, clothes, and a mountain as the same as smoke from a fire, simply murders the famous Siromani.” A pandit from Eastern Bengal said: “Smoke is an entirely different substance from a water-jar: smoke is the effect of fire: how then can there be smoke when there is no fire[41]?” And so the dispute went on, and at last, from simply glaring at each other, they got to a hand-to-hand scrimmage.
Thakchacha thought matters were looking serious and that he had better calm things down before they went any further; so going quietly up to them, he said: “I say, gentlemen, why are you making such minute enquiries about such trifles as a water-pot or a lamp? I will make you a much more valuable present; I will give you two water-pots apiece,” A very sharp Brahman amongst the pandits at once got up and said, “Who are you, you low fellow? An infidel outcast present at the shraddha of a Hindu? This is not the shraddha of a she-ghost, that an apparition like you should be the superintendent of it.” As he said this, everybody present began abusing Thakchacha, thumping him with their fists, pushing him about and beating him with sticks. Thereupon Bancharam Babu hurried up and said: “If you make a disturbance and interfere with the shraddha in this way, I will know the reason why: I will get a summons out against you at once from the High Court. I am not a man to be trifled with I can tell you.” Bakreswar Babu too had his say. “That is right: besides, the boy who is performing the shraddha is no common boy, he is the very model of a boy.” Becharam Baba observed: “It is becoming a matter of notoriety that nothing ever goes right where Thakchacha and Bancharam have the management. Ugh! Ugh.” The disturbance did not cease. The rowdy vagrants who were present, and others, kept adding to the confusion, and as blows from the canes continually rained on them, they shouted out, “A fine shraddha indeed you have celebrated.” At length all the respectable gentlemen present, seeing the state of affairs, exclaimed:—
“Friends! Call this a shraddha? Whose shraddha I pray?”
“’Tis death to a Brahman to toil without pay.”
“Come, we had better slip away at once: why should we run any more risk when there is nothing to be gained by it?”
CHAPTER XXI.
MATILALL ON THE GUDDEE.
PEOPLE did not think much of Baburam Babu’s shraddha. The rain, as the proverb has it, was out of all proportion to the thunder. Oil fell on a good many heads that were oiled already, while heads that were dry and destitute of oil only got cracked. Their disputation was all the profit that the pandits got. The uneducated city Brahmans had it all their own way. The harsh discipline of all kinds to which pandits subject themselves, creates in them a stubbornness of nature: they follow their own opinions and do not agree with all and everything they find. The Brahmans of a lower order, habitúes of the city, suit their conversation to the minds of the Babus: in the words of the proverb, they adapt their strokes to the quality of the wood. If it suits them to be Gosains, Gosains they can be; and the characters they can assume are as varied as the ingredients of a curry mixture; is it surprising then that they generally get the best of everything? The managers of the shraddha had taken every precaution to fill their own pockets: they were keen chiefly on their own share of the gifts: what did it matter to them whether the pandits or the poor received anything worth mentioning? There was a great flourish of trumpets over things that would be matter of public observation and could not be avoided, but equal consideration was not shown throughout. Management such as that is a mere playing to the gallery.