vii.              Karmatar

Various members of the Moore family older than me would talk of "Grandmother's Days" and from them I gained a picture of the Homestead at the turn of the century. Karmatar in my time was very different to how it had been in my grandmother's day. Then the Moore estate spread to about 1200 acres of paddy fields, mud villages surrounding dug out tanks (ponds), fruit trees, and bushes. The Burra Ghar (big bungalow), which had once served as the Seventh Day Adventist Mission Hospital and was one day to become the Gutgutia High School, was the most imposing building in Karmatar by far. It was part of the estate. There was the family Homestead consisting of six rooms, with inside and outside verandahs back and front, and attached rooms serving as godowns (storage rooms) and kitchen. Near the homestead was a chapra ghar (tiled house), which had been the nurses' quarters.

The estate produced much of what the family needed. Rice was the main market commodity and fruit was second. Bricks were formed from clay and bound with straw from the rice and were baked in a large kiln. No doubt the areas of excavated clay became the tanks and provided the material for the mud walls of houses, strengthened by the bamboos that grew in abundance. Rice straw was used for fodder for the homestead dairy cattle and for making rope. One use of this rope was to make hundis (large amphora-looking baskets), used for storing rice. As in U.S. plantations, there were "field" and "house" servants. A vegetable garden and a chicken run provided for the table. Rents from the large bungalow and from some of the land were a staple to Grandmother Moore's finances. An acre or so in the vicinity of the family graveyard was rented to flower growers who had their stalls in the New Market in Calcutta. On the front gate of the homestead was a plaque with the Moore name and the title "Zamindar". Grandmother Moore as a zamindar served as an honorary magistrate. She heard occasional cases of land disputes and marriage and family difficulties, seated in her front verandah. The compound in front of the house was where the labourers hired for the rice operations would line up for their wages. The same area would on certain festivals be visited by Sonthalis for exhibitions of dance, and there would be much drumming followed by some carousing. The Moore youngsters, particularly the infants, were favourites of the Sonthalis.

Unfortunately many of the Moore children thought of themselves as gentry and put on airs, but all in all the Moore Homestead and Estate was a wonderful place for children. And the Moores looked regal: my mother was the shortest at 5' 6", whereas the average height of the native girls was less than  5', and the men were not much taller. The Moore men averaged about 6', and some were considerably taller. The Moore children resembled a bunch of Anglo-Indian aliens, set down among dark Sonthalis and brown Biharis and Bengalis. Some of the children spoke Sonthali, Hindi and Bengali in addition to English.

Ram Brat Singh was the "munshi" (teacher) at Victoria School, Kurseong. He taught Hindi and the school used the Hindi grammar text he had written. He had brown peach-lobe cheeks and a round tummy, below which his legs were covered in baggy grey trousers. He walked with his feet splayed, and only in slow motion. A pillbox hat sat permanently on his head. He was the gentlest of men and the boys took advantage of his kindness. His son was a day-boy at the school. The year after the munshi retired the munshi's family moved to the Plains. The boy was then a teenager, spoke English fluently and was proficient in Latin. It seemed he would have a good future. Instead, the boy caught a fever in the Plains in his first summer there and died. If there was any consolation in so great a loss to Munshiji, it must have come from his Hindu thinking, expressed in patience, a long view of the world, and a faith in the human virtues found in the "Ramayana", whose tales he would sometimes tell us in class. He spoke beautiful Hindi, his voice enunciating music. His sorrow for his son's death would have become a passage in the larger music of his life.

Fr. C. E. Prior was an annual visitor to Victoria School. He was a priest in the Oxford Mission. As a friend of our scoutmaster he would accompany the scouts on their camp during the Pujah holidays. He was welcomed for his friendly disposition and his thrilling tales at the camp fire. When he related the story of the seventh son of the seventh son, we believed in second vision and the supernatural and ghosts. He wore a simple, white habit over a tall and bulky frame. He had grey eyes and a grey beard. He looked like an Old Testament prophet. Actually, he was a product of Harrow Public School and Oxford University. I think he must have been the most cultured person associated with Victoria, and the most modest. The boys knew nothing of his background and abilities. He believed this life was a preparation for a greater one that God had devised. Were that so, Fr. Prior would have some sort of dearly beloved senior position in the hereafter. Another greatly admired man of my boyhood was an evangelist of a little-known group who referred to themselves as "the friends". The preachers of the group went out "two by two" to spread the gospel. His name was Harold Jeff and he came from New Zealand.

Harold and his "companion" rented a cheap room in a poorer part of Calcutta. At the time Harold called at our home, my mother and the three children were about to enter a taxi to go to a movie. Mother offered to cancel the outing, but Harold would have none of it. Mother was concerned about dinner for the unexpected visitor. He assured her he would be all right. Much later in our association with Harold, we learned he had had a bag of peanuts for dinner that evening and had slept on the railway platform on a blow-up rubber mattress. Poverty was the Christ-way Harold had chosen. Harold believed that living like Christ was essential to preaching the gospel. I was very impressed, and still am. Harold and Fr. Prior were very different, yet had much in common.

Victoria School had its own Anglican chaplain. He looked after chapel affairs for both Victoria and Dow Hill Schools, taught scripture at both schools, produced plays at Victoria, organized fund raising events and directed the Victoria chapel choir. His name was G. B. Elliot, which he would write in a beautiful script. The inner group of boys, changed each year, was made up of servers and a church warden. In my last year at the school I was a server and his church warden.

My religious life at Victoria was unusual. The school was thoroughly secular in spirit and nowhere had my parents been asked to register their religious affiliation. I had been christened Church of England as an infant, and at the age of eleven had become a Roman Catholic. When I was asked at Victoria which church I attended, I gave Roman Catholic and so joined in with the minority R.C. boys for masses. Meanwhile, my father had been influenced by Harold Jeff, the evangelist, and on learning I was attending Roman Catholic masses he wrote to the Headmaster, informing him I was not to be considered a Roman Catholic. There were to be repercussions from my dad’s letter. I was called to the Headmaster’s office, where the Head and the Catholic priest were waiting for me. The head told me and the priest of my father’s wish.

The priest was disappointed and I have an idea my "case" was talked about among the staff, which had both Anglican and Catholic members. In my final year at the school, when the nomination of prefects was discussed by the staff, it could be my nomination was opposed by the Catholic members, especially as Padre Elliot had made me his church warden. That must have been like displaying a red rag. I should mention I had been confirmed an Anglican at the school, without objection from my dad. My satisfaction in the proceedings rose from my being able to join the congregation in the Anglican chapel for Sunday services at which I could view the attractive Dow Hill girls, a privilege not extended to the Roman Catholics, who did not have a chapel of their own. One of the perks of having a church office was knowing where the communion wine was kept and on some cold evenings in November of the year I warmed myself with an occasional sip of wine. I cannot think I was the first boy to do that, Victorians being as adventurous as they were. Anyway, I must be the only church warden in the history of the school who was not a prefect.

Padre Elliot performed good works that remained unknown to boys in school by helping boys whose families were in difficulty because of the absence of a father. He was instrumental in getting the boys in such families promising jobs when they left school. "By their works shall ye know them."

My mother's brother, Fred, died in a mine disaster. He left a wife and six children. The wife had a very rough time bringing up that family. She had help from her family and, fortunately, for a while she had the use of the family home in Karmatar. Her eldest child, Noreen, took a nurses' training in Calcutta and married Anil Roy, who became a leading surgeon in the city. Her daughter, Anita, married Samir Mukherji, of an extremely well- known Calcutta family. Thus was my Anglo-Indian family reinforced as an Anglo-Indian - Indian mix.

The best-known of my family was the son of another of my mother's brothers. The son's name was Ronnie Moore. He won the All-India Police Medal one year and held the heavyweight boxing championship of the country for some years. He was known for deeds of daring in Calcutta and became the Deputy Commissioner of the Calcutta Police.

I lived the first twenty-five years of my life in India. Those years formed the man I turned out to be, for better or for worse. The random recollections I have from that period of my life, like my other recollections of significance to me, are in some ways satisfactory, in some disappointing. While it is not possible to make a one line summing up, I could say that overall it bred in me an affection of India and Indians.