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Updated: May 16, 2025
When any matter has to be decided, the villagers all meet at the banyan tree, where they have made their manjhi than; they take out a stool to the tree and invite the invisible headman to sit on it. Then they discuss the matter and themselves speak the answers which the headman is supposed to give.
"Where goest thou?" he asked. "Serampore" answered the Brahman before the boatman could reply. "My home is near by," the man remarked gladly, and jumped into the boat, pulling his bear after him. The boatmen scowled angrily: "Get out, we go not so far." But he would not. The manjhi warned him that he and his bear would gain nothing by forcing themselves into the boat.
Some of the boatmen were cooking their evening meal, while others sat about on the decks smoking and singing. Many of the boats were wedged close together and drawn up on to the bank. But one lay well in the water and some distance from its fellow-craft. His seemingly careless gaze took in the Brahman, about to descend the bank. As the Brahman came nearer, the manjhi saw it was a bag of money.
The unfortunate man agreed and then the jog manjhi and godet were sent to call all the men of the neighbourhood to a meeting. They assembled in their best clothes and pagris and sat down in rows, and in the middle a circle was drawn on the ground; then prayers were offered to Chando and the child was set in the circle and told to find its father.
I was in constant anxiety about the latter till 8 o'clock the next day, when we all came together, except one soldier topass, who, by his own fault, had remained on a big boat which we had abandoned, and a manjhi, who was drowned in one of the two little ones which had sunk.
They were near the end of their journey when the bear-man asked suddenly: "Manjhi, have we not passed Serampore?" "Are you the guru of boatmen that you question me?" replied the manjhi, and then, in a more conciliatory tone, added: "We are going higher up for a crossing. The tide is strong." The explanation was reasonable. But the bear-man's suspicions had been awakened and he was on the alert.
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