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Ghana da was Postcolonial:Reworkings of the Robinson Crusoe trope in Bengali literatureThe title of my paper is a vague attempt at resonance, lost in translation, with the title of the short story that caught my attention some time back: Robinson Crusoe meye chhilen, or Robinson Crusoe was female. And of course Ghana da was not postcolonial not overtly. Consciously at least, nor was his creator Premendra Mitra. For those of us who are not altogether familiar with the institution of Ghana da, a bit of an introduction would not altogether be amiss.Ghana da appeared on the Bengali literary scene in 1945 in a short story titled Mosha or Mosquito. It was published in Alpana, a Puja barshiki. Four comrades, so to speak, feature in his stories. They are Shibu, Sisir, Gour and Sudhir. Shibu, as has been pointed out, is based on the great humourist and satirist, Shibram Chakrabarty. And Sudhir, a narrator in whose voice we hear the first few stories, fades in gradually. Sudhir was also Premendra Mitras own pet-name. Ghana da is a middle-aged man, tall, lanky, with a voracious appetite. Leela Mazumdar would write (quoted in the introduction to Anandas Complete Ghana da) I have known many gastrophiles who have brought ruin upon their happy homes doing exactly this: Even if they are not cooking themselves, they will supply those who are with descriptions of food preparation from Riga, Mikiu, the Congo, or Bodrum, in torturous detail. This brings together succinctly the two principle preoccupations of Ghana da: eating and story-telling especially with an eye on the far off and fantastic. As the saying goes, long have readers and skeptics resigned themselves to the fact that there has not been a single significant incident in the world over the last century or so in which Ghana da has not played a role.Ghana da lives for the most part lives on the edge, one might say in a mess-bari. As Amlan da points out in the introduction to the collection of his translations, a mess-bari does not quite translate into a boarding house. The mess-bari would be an assemblage where individuals would stay paying reluctant rents. Many of the favourite characters in Bengali fiction of the early and mid 20th century are based in mess-bari-s. Shibram Chakrabarty, mentioned earlier, set most of his stories in the mess-bari. Most of these, as Amlan da notes, would be located either in Central or in North Kolkata. The setting itself would dictate a kind of all-male cast or perhaps in rare cases all-female but Im not sure how popular these are. The all male cast is again something that is characteristic of a fairly prominent body of literature for children in Bengali. One thinks of the similar Teni da of Pataldanga, and his gang, or indeed of Felu da.Ghana da lives on the edge even beyond his mess-bari arrangement. He lives on the edge of credulity and always running the risk of getting caught. But he wont get caught. We are never sure if we are happy when he wriggles out of a tight corner, or if our sympathies lay with those who were trying to catch him out. He has a sense of entitlement that is annoying and endearing at the same time. The author too keeps an accurate tab on the number of cigarettes Ghana da has claimed. While in the first few stories Ghana da distributes evenly the privilege of offering him cigarettes, by the time we get to Nuri, we find that Sisir is the consistent supplier, and that Ghana da has till then borrowed 2357 cigarettes from him.Premendra Mitra was a remarkable man himself. The writer of several novels, he worked in the film industry when it was in its formative stages here. He wrote short stories, and won fame as a poet. He wrote in 1944 in Why I write that for him, Writing is not merely a recreational pastime, or a personal luxury. It is a great responsibility to express in human terms the enormous impenetrability of valuable knowledge that surrounds the human experience. One of the reasons behind writing Ghana da perhaps reason is too strong a word lets say one of Premendra Mitras own interests that informs Ghana da, is science. He was a student of the sciences, though he did not become a scientist himself. Surajit Dasgupta, editor of the Ananda Complete Ghana da writes that in conversation Premendra Mitra has once revealed that shortly after the death of Chittaranjan Das, when Calcutta was gripped by communal riots, he went off to his birthplace, Varanasi, and there met Manoranjan and Kshitindranarayan Bhattacharya, two brothers from Calcutta. The three of them discussed many a scheme to develop a strand of childrens literature in Bengali that would feature the scientific developments of the world. Mitra quickly penned a novella, which was published shortly afterwards. His Ghana da stories are extremely well-researched, but that never gets in the way of a fertile imagination neither of creator, nor of character.From this, let me abruptly shift to a brief discussion of Crusoe in Bengal. In the 1719 novel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe written by Daniel Defoe himself, Crusoe does come to Bengal. I have not finished reading the novel in its entirety, but from the chapters that I did get to read while preparing for this paper, it appears that there was a mutiny on his ship when they had reached Bengal, and he found himself stranded here. He clarifies that his main difficulty resulted from the fact that he had arrived without any concern with the East Indian Company, and it would, therefore, be difficult to find a ship out. He writes, I then took a good lodging in the house of an Englishwoman, where several merchants lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, and one Englishman. Here I stayed for nine months, considering what course to take. But this is taking Crusoe in Bengal trope too literally.As I suppose is the case in most parts of the English-speaking world, Robinson Crusoe features in some form abridged, fragmented in school syllabi. In an essay titled Household Words: an account of the Bengal Family Library, Abhijit Gupta draws our attention to the work of the Vernacular Literary Society of Bengal that was founded in 1851. It was responsible for the first publishers series in the Bengali language the Bengal Family Library. The first book that the Society decided to translate was none other than Robinson Crusoe. The translation done by J. Robinson, here I agree with Abhijit da, is a good read. A copy of possibly the fourth edition (or subsequent) is available at the National Library, but earlier editions can perhaps be located in Uttarpara Library. Abhijit da quotes from a note to the first edition of Paul and Virginie, where Hodgson Pratt writes,Mere Translation would not meet the great objects which this Society intends to keep in view. There is not only a difference of language between the people of India and of England. We must recognize the far greater difficulty of a difference of ideas, associations, and literature. The instruction [italics mine] communicated to the masses require somewhat more than mere employment of the vehicle of native language the form in which it is conveyed must appeal to ideas and feelings already existing

In accordance with this view two of our number undertook to adopt the text of Robinson Crusoewe did not hesitate to change the scene, to make Robinson Crusoe the son of an Armenian merchant in Calcutta, and to wreck him on one of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago.Over the next few years, however, the Societys views underwent change, and they considered the adaptation in bad taste. The fourth edition has the original names restored and is a more literal, direct translation.The 1857 report showing the sale of the Societys titles in the first five years (1851-86) Abhijit da cites in his article records that barring the Almanac for Bengali Year 1262, which sold 1427 copies, the highest selling title was Robinson Crusoe, which sold a thousand copies remarkably of the thousand that were printed. Lambs Tales from Shakespeare sold only 317 out of the 1500 that were printed. The sales of Robinson Crusoe did take a hit around three years later, when, as the Friend of India commented, that they wished fiction was sold even more, but all classes are interested in Robinson Crusoe and can comprehend the Ugly Duckling.Ashutosh Mukherjees library included a copy of The New Robinson Crusoe: An Instructive and Entertaining History for the Use of Children of Both Sexes, written by J.H. Campe. Campe took issue with Rousseaus views on the roles of culture and nature in the growth of the child. He felt that Rousseau allows Nature too much; and where he thought he found her defective, he has not always been able to find the best means of supplying her defects. The preface goes on to discuss a passage from Rousseaus Emile, or On Education (1762). Rousseau writes,Might there not be found means to bring together so many lessons of instruction that lie scattered in so many books; to apply them through a single object of a familiar and not uncommon nature, capable of engaging the imitation, as well as rousing and fixing the attention even at so tender an age?...

This book shall be the first that I will put into the hands of my Emilius; this singly shall for a long time compose his whole library, and indeed shall always hold a distinguished place there Well, then, what is this wonderful book? Is it Aristotle, Pliny, of Buffon? No: it is Robinson Crusoe.Rousseau gets carried away and goes on to say that Crusoe does all this without tools of any sort at which point the editor politely points out that this is not accurate. Campe said that his Crusoe, the New Crusoe, will differ in that he will indeed not have the tools at his disposal. The work unfolds in the house of a Gentleman named Billingsley who resided some years ago at Twickenham. Edward, Harriet, Charlotte, Henry, George are some of the children who sit around him, and listen to the wonderful adventures of this man. The tone is finely modulated, and finally, after the happy ending the desired I will do the same is elicited from the children.Rabindranath Tagore may have read the J. Robinson translation of Robinson Crusoe. The Hibbert Lectures, which Tagore delivered in May 1930 in Oxford, Manchester College, were published in The Religion of Man. In a chapter titled The Teacher, Tagore writes, This reminds me that when I was young I had the great good fortune of coming upon a Bengali translation of Robinson Crusoe. I still believe that it is the best book for boys that has ever been written. There was a longing in me when young to run away from my own self and be one with everything in Nature. This mood appears to be particularly Indian, the outcome of a traditional desire for the expansion of consciousness. It is interesting to follow Tagores line of thought and gradually understand what he is reading in the novel. He sees it as the story of an individual who is living in the lap of Nature, so to speak, not in a relationship that is marked by any kind of coercion. It is an act of active wooing of the earth. Man is face to face with solitary Nature, he writes, coaxing her, co-operating with her, exploring her secrets, using all his faculties to win her help. He strikes a wistful note, saying that he regrets that this dream of his was not realized in his own school days. I have only made the first introduction towards it and have given an opportunity to the children to find their freedom in Nature by being able to love it. For love is freedom[footnoteRef:1] These are all the references to Robinson Crusoe in Bengali literature that I have been able to trace, and I would be truly grateful if someone could offer me any further reference. [1: Rabindranath Tagore, The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A Miscellany (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996), 158-160.]

It becomes evident that for Rousseau or for Campe, and for Tagore on the other hand, different aspects of Robinson Crusoe become important in pedagogical terms. For the former, the appeal of the text lies in the instruction on how to defend oneself against Nature with suitable supplements from culture, so to speak, and to form a self-dependent individual character. When it is imported to India, initially at least, there is perhaps an intent to provide for the colonized a lesson in individuality something that Ian Watts and others point out time and again. Perhaps there is also an inscribed message, a warning against collapsing into Nature wild and malignant. Just as an aside, recently, Katherine Frank has published a full-length book on Robert Knox, the man who she claims was Robinson Crusoe, but that has received a rather disappointing review in The Guardian, so I will not go into that before Ive read the book. My thanks to Swapan da for pointing this out, among several other things and Robinson Crusoe.The question of Fridays absence here, and prominence in other texts like Coetzees Foe (1986) led me back to Supriya dis essay titled The Absence of Caliban: Shakespeare and Colonial Modernity. In this essay Supriya di discusses in the Aftermath of The Tempest, an early Bengali novel published in 1866, considered by many as the authors greatest and strangest work, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyays Kapalkundala. The interest both Bankim and Tagore show in Miranda, Chaudhuri writes, is deeply rooted in another project of nineteenth-century India, the construction of the female subjectThis absence [of Caliban] marks a refusal, on the part of both writers, to return the disabling gaze of a European text in its own terms; a refusal I would argue, to be co-opted into a debate about master and slave, power and subjection, authority and revolt. She clarifies that while Bankim and Tagore are fortunate, perhaps, in not having to look at Shakespeares play of power from the perspective of a land wiped clean of this other past and, therefore, requiring Caliban as intermediary, that is not to claim for them the accidental privilege of a colonial subject fully capable of reading and understanding his own history. There is no privilege in this narrative.It is true, that in Premendra Mitras account Friday does not appear. But it would perhaps be far-fetched both chronologically and theoretically to link that up with the absence of Caliban. But the absence of any discomfort with or even a mention of the Crusoe-Friday/Master-Slave relationship in Tagore (indeed in Premendra Mitra too) is telling, and it is this absence of Friday that I wanted to read in the light of Supriya dis essay. This is the good thing about the humanities, isnt it? Normally, one can write about something when it is there, but in the humanities things get even more interesting when its absent. It is perhaps because there was not a systematic demolition of the Indian civilizations, and no direct master-slave relationship, specifically in Bengal, that neither Caliban nor Friday feature in the readings of Tagore or Bankim. Now, to finally come to Ghana da. The island features in a few Ghana da stories. Indeed, the very first one, Mosha or Mosquito unfolds on an island the Sakhalin island. As Surajit Dasgupta notes, when Mitra was writing the short story, this particular island drew world-wide attention, being caught up in a tug of war between the Russians and the Japanese. In his story, Nuri or Pebble Ghana da takes us to an island close to Aniwa, where the 20 latitude and 170 longitude intersect. By the time the story is being narrated, however, this enigmatic island, by the name of Mikiyu, has disappeared underwater. At least one of his novel has for its location an island from which giant metallic robots are beginning to dominate the earth titled The Island of Maya-danav, the asura, who is also a divine architect.A few of Ghana das stories unfold not in Banamali Naskar Lane, but around the Dhakuria Lakes. It is usually described as a great lake in South Calcutta. In this story Robinson Crusoe was female written in the early 1950s, one of the interlocutors, Harisadhan babu, is accompanied by his young granddaughter. Pointing at the little island in the middle of the lake the girl says, Look, Dadu, isnt it just like Robinson Crusoes island? And she follows it up with, When I grow up, Ill be like Robinson Crusoe. Harisadhan babu replies, My dear, how can that be? Is it possible for a girl to be like Robinson Crusoe?Ghana da takes the side of the child immediately. Why not?, he asks, Do you know the story that inspired the tale of Robinson Crusoe? Shivpada babu responded hesitantly, As far as I know, it was based on the experiences of a sailor called Alexander Selkirk. Ghana da denies this unequivocally, claiming that during the reign of William and Mary, Defoe found himself in Madrid for some business matter. In Madrid while going through the belongings of an elderly Jewish person he was startled at the discovery of a manuscript dating back to the 13th century. The scribe was a man called Rusticiano. The story-teller, Marco Polo himself. Now for those who are familiar with Marco Polo, the name will immediately ring a bell. Rusticiano was indeed an alternative name of Rustichello da Pisa, who is supposed to have co-written Marco Polos Travels. The story that Ghana da provides of their meeting too is remarkably accurate.Ghana da says that a long time ago when the capital of the Su dynasty had not yet shifted from Kaifeng, there lived in that great city a jewel trader called Chuan hu. He had a beautiful daughter by the name of Nan Su. A rival kingdom from the North, the Kitan, had laid siege on the royal city, enclosing it from all sides by boats and ships. They bargained that if Nan Su were given up and sent to them, they would call of the siege and free Kaifeng. The charge of taking Nan Su away was given to Si Huan, the man whose face lit up Nan Sus otherwise constrained life. The two decided that they would not reach their destination but go to a deserted island instead to spend the rest of their days. While at sea, a tempest sunk their ship, and with it their hopes. When she regained consciousness Nan Su found herself on a deserted island. She waited there for years on end, climbing up to the highest point every day in the hope of being rescued. None came. Till one day, she saw a boat appear on the horizon. It drew near, and her heart leapt with excitement when she realized that the man who had come was none other than Si Huan. The man failed to recognize her and revealed that none of the his generation had set sail. The last to do so was Si Huan, eight generations back a couple of centuries ago. He asked her to reveal where the wealth of the island was buried, for their ancestor had foretold that a great treasure lies hidden in the island of Nan Su. Gradually many more boats arrived all Si Huans ancestors. They chased her, and when she reached the highest point, she realized suddenly that her age was showing on her body. She was burnt that night on that same point from which she had looked seawards for hope every single day. Ghana da fell silent.Shivpada babu enquired But what similarity does this bear to the story of Robinson Crusoe?How can you expect there to be one? A seventeenth century butchers son, trading in linen and tiles how would Daniel Defoe appreciate the delicate beauty of this story. His limited intelligence turned this quickly into a tale for little boys.What then is the moral of this tale? Asked an eager Harisadhan babu. Ghana da merely looked at him in his own particular manner. No one pushed for a further question.Yes, there is no Friday, and there is an incident that closely resembles witch-burning. But that is precisely why Premendra Mitra is so slippery. It is hard to guess what traditions he is drawing upon and what the purpose, what the moral of his story is. For instance, on the other hand, he is also fond of recalling how his ancestors were part of Cortezs army, and how it was his ancestor, Ganado Das (Das means servant a surname Ganado retained to commemorate his service to Cortez) who invented the archetype of the tank. There is a map that shows the movement of his ancestor from India to Peru.Surajit Dasgupta notes, with examples from Mitras poetry, that the in the initial phases of his writing career, he was navely excited about the possibilities that the European Renaissance seemed to hold out. The world is great, the stars have told us, The sky is unlimited, he wrote. But gradually his unfounded enthusiasm ebbed. Towards the end of his career he would write works like Ghana da Becomes a Servant or The Golden Tears of the Sun, both of which are consciously or unconsciously post-colonial in their spirit. The point about Ghana das story is that it doesnt seem to have one. Not an overt one at any rate. Amlan da writes Many in my generation learnt about the orang-pendek and Schistocerca gregaria from Ghana da. By then he was already a classic...He represented something unique even among the rich fare of childrens literature that we had for our delectation: Narayan Gangulys Teni da stories, the anarchic tales of Shibram ChakrabartiWhat must have appealed to us about these stories then, I now realize, was the absence of any apparent didactic intent. The exotic settings, the audacious inventiveness, the sheer power of the narratives were what counted. The point about lacking a didactic quality is illuminating, because one immediately thinks of Felu da. There is a certain intellectual (with a bit of a stretch, even a moral) superiority that Felu da seems to claim over others. And it is his knowledge on which the solving of the mystery often hinges. There is something almost patronizing in the way in which he at times talks down to Jatayu. Satyajit Ray did not fail to notice this, which is explained by the occasional appearances of characters like Mandar Bose, who use their knowledge to put down and trick others with evil intent. Felu da steps in, but even this foil does not quite absolve him of his own stand. In the case of Ghana da, the crux of each story where Ghana da escapes from the tight corner does not depend on his presentation of actual facts. Or factual acts. He builds up his credibility by supplying an enormous amount of true details, but then escapes with a sleight of hand that leaves us feeling silly. Knowledge and trivia here do not, therefore, carry a moral quality indeed they support an immoral act.I would argue that this is precisely what happens also to the Robinson Crusoe story in the hands of Premendra Mitra. I personally cannot seriously entertain in its context the theoretical readings I gestured towards earlier. The great contribution, for me, that Mitra makes in the reworkings of Robinson Crusoe is that he offers an alternate history that frees us from its didactic content. He takes a novel one of the foundational novels a novel of self-discipline, of civilizational assertion and places it against a fairy-tale. He removes the conventional didactic elements from it, brings in a deeply disturbing image of witch-burning (we could perhaps think of Sycorax and persecution in the Renaissance?) and adds to it a kind of affect that lies at the heart of the story from the periphery of which any youngster or adult would be able to glean the details and the knowledge that Mitra intends to convey to us.Sujaan Mukherjee