13. My Research Assistant

December, after our return from Calcutta, saw a new phase in my fieldwork begin for me, one in which I became progressively immersed in the lives of the people I was working with, or as I saw it, in which I could accomplish thrice as much in a day as I had previously done. Many factors, apart from the length of our stay in Banaras, made this possible. The first was the acquisition of a research assistant. He was in need of work, was well educated, was from Banaras, and was without ideas, opinions, or knowledge that could make him difficult to guide.

Nagendra Sharma was brought to me by the famous Virendra Singh, famous in my mind because he was one of the three names we had when we first reached Banaras. He had taught Hindi to many of the American students who were now valiantly busy with South Asian studies, “future professors at Harvard and Yale,” as Sombabu called them, and many regarded him as a good friend. He had offered us his help and friendship as well—once we had found him, that is, because, as in other cases, just to look for “Virendra Singh, Hindi Master, Assi” was not the most efficient way to track him down. But he lived too far away, was too busy, and seemed to specialize in too different a cast of actors for me to take up his offer of help. One day, finally, we made a definite appointment, and he declared he would introduce me to people at Manikarnika, the main burning ghat of the city and apparently the hub of the city’s cultural activity, as many (but clearly not I) saw it. I have always been too greedy and acquisitive ever to say “no” to such an offer, even when I faintly thought to myself, “What do I want with Manikarnika?” The prospect of wandering in those mysterious galis with a knowledgeable companion was not one to turn down.

Virendra and I set out at dawn, walked a decent distance from ghat to ghat by the riverside, and then started introductions. According to the list I compiled when it was all over, I met some sixteen people, including pandas (pilgrim priests), pandits (assorted priests), karmakandis (ritual specialists), shopkeepers of cremation goods, and the death census taker. They were all exciting in an objective way, but my own project was becoming sufficiently defined in my mind that I felt little excitement. Manikarnika people were, and have remained, a haze of interesting colors, patterns, images, and activities that has become progressively fainter. I was unable to say anything coherent to any of the people I met, apart from answering or occasionally asking basic questions about place and nature of work; I usually stood by awkwardly, laughing at their jokes, playing perhaps more the role of the first part of Virendra’s introduction: “This is my sister. She is an anthropologist, too.” The “too” further subdued me, made me seek invisibility. I felt trapped by this hint of the numerous other scholars, some quite renowned, whom he had assisted. Their shadows followed us everywhere. I have never been able to function comfortably in a situation where something is expected of me but I do not know what, and where my guide has an agenda and understands it much more clearly than I understand mine. That morning, I concluded my brief exchange with each of the sixteen people saying, “I’ll be back.” As we paused to rest and breakfast on delicious kachoris, Virendra turned to me frankly, “It has struck me the whole time that you were more the silent observer than the active participant, that you were simply watching my face.” For him, thinking of Manikarnika as the city’s high spot, it was an appropriate condemnation; I had little to say in my defense and thought unhappily of my artisans, a vague group of faces, as if they were waiting for me somewhere. I almost believed that Virendra would be disenchanted after this exhibition of my incompetence and not bother with me again, but he subsequently turned up with Nagendra. An air of mourning still pervaded the house, but with distinct ability Virendra put everything in place by voicing my unexpressed thoughts: “The best way to combat tragedy is to get on with your work.” Thus I acquired Nagendra and proceeded to train him.

Nagendra had many qualities, foremost of which were a sense of duty, perseverance, and precision in carrying out instructions. What I had to train him in was to use his own brains when complying with the tasks I set, to remain flexible, to imagine that the questions he was asking mattered to him. I had a long list of jobs for him, most of which left him agape. In fact, he was always agape in the first few months, and my most lasting legacy to him may be the acceptance of all kinds of projects as possible and worthwhile. Interview the keepers of teashops, the haunters of parks and bazaar crossings, temple goers, cinema fans, bathers at the ponds and tanks, those strolling the streets at certain times of the day and night…

I was acutely conscious that my project was becoming a little too well defined and that instead of seeing all the possibilities in “popular culture,” I might end up discovering only those that I had already identified, diverse and fascinating as these were. I was also conscious that even with these perceived domains, I was useless for gathering certain kinds of information. I could be sure of the feelings of one family, or two or three or even four, about temples, but what of the hundreds of visitors who thronged the popular temples every day? What made them choose a particular temple, what did it mean to them, what did they think they were accomplishing, what else did they do that could compare with this, and so on. I was positive, as I still am, that the responses to such queries would vary with age, occupation, caste, class, and personality. The only way to deal with this problem was to take a sample. Now this was a sort of “evil” thought that came to me, since I was dedicated wholeheartedly to the notion of intense observation of a few, without questionnaires or even preconceptions about what one would find. Both sampling and questionnaires were outside my methodology, but, in a kind of extension of Hindu methods, I was willing to tolerate them as long as I did not sully my own hands with them. I did modify their impact by making Nagendra memorize the questions, encouraging him to let the interview subject lead him on if so inclined and always commending him for long, rambling interviews.

I further recognized that no matter how skillful I became at approaching and mingling with people, there were certain people and situations beyond me. The dark, cavernous mouths of teashops were among these, no less terrifying than the mouths of wild beasts. They were terribly attractive and Dostoevskian, and occasionally I went to one with an informant, but in such cases the two of us were clearly isolated and may as well have been sitting in the informant’s home. Never did I strike up a conversation with a stranger or, as was my biggest dream, with the teashop owner. I suffered from an illogical and inconsistent apprehension. The same men, young and old, whom I considered courteous and “decent” in other contexts and who repeatedly proved themselves to be so, became, I imagined, threatening, perhaps perverse, certainly rude and prying, in these teashops. I am speaking of course about the sooty, solid shops in single rooms in the older parts of the city, not the outdoor extravaganzas in places like Maidagin, although the apprehension I felt was almost the same in both places. Now, since I absolutely had to find out when, how, and why most of these shops were established, who and how many frequented them, what the customers preferred to eat, and what the tenor of discussions in them was, I needed Nagendra.

Anyone who has ever engaged in research knows the luxury of suddenly having an assistant to command (see fig. 9). To call it having an extra pair of hands or feet is to idealize the situation too much, because the “command” remains at a somewhat removed level. What happens, or what happened to me at least, was that I could let my imagination loose, think adventurously of all the data I would have liked to collect if I could, formulate strategies, sometimes wild and difficult, for accomplishing this, and unload them all on the assistant—because, simply speaking, he worked for me. I had a wide range of possibilities because it seemed ridiculous to pay someone less than a certain minimum per month, and in the Banaras of 1981 a lot of work could be devised for two or three hundred rupees. I indulged myself, thinking of all I would like to ask the wanderers, travelers, hangers on, loiterers, and passers-by, in assorted locations, if only I could, and passing on the tasks to Nagendra. The results were never as exciting as the formulations themselves, which I believe is a basic characteristic of this methodology.

My brother Nagendra with my sister-in-law, mother, nephews, and niece

Nagendra himself was consistently noncommittal when asked to respond to the quality of the questions, their appropriateness or their focus. He didn’t seem to realize that he had been born and bred in the city that I—now we, jointly—were researching. For some time, I suffered from my typical doubts in thinking that his unresponsiveness reflected a problem in my project itself: it was wholly off the mark, made no sense to the subjects themselves, addressed no relevant issues, rang no bells. As I received confirmation from many other quarters that this was not so, my confidence increased, but Nagendra’s did not. He never had a suggestion for addition or deletion, for place or person, theme or form. He looked the same whether he encountered failure or success. I continued to fantasize about the ideal research assistant and to wonder where such a person could be found, but meanwhile Nagendra won my heart with his conscientiousness and precision. In any case, I could never have been cruel enough to take away employment from anyone once I had given it.

Where he exceeded all expectations was in the archival part of my research. I had long abandoned trying to copy down everything from the newspapers in Nagari Pracharini Sabha and had decorated them all with paper markers instead. I had applied, formally and in triplicate, for permission to photocopy these pages, in the company of Sabha officials, at the nearest photocopying place. The permission came through one year and two months later, and said: “Re: The photocopying of pages of Aj and Bharat Jiwan by research scholar Nita Kumar. The above-mentioned research scholar is permitted to copy the materials she has requested, provided she does it on the premises of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha.”

Since no one within many hundred miles of the place had a portable copying machine, that was that. I got Nagendra to work, and over the next year he produced for me some five hundred pages of notes in a pearl-like, impeccable handwriting. He became a more familiar institution at the Sabha than me, coming and going before or after his office hours, getting through one page here, another there. Yet, at the end of the year, when I surveyed what was left (for I daresay that I was going faster in marking than he was in copying), I panicked. For one week I hired three typists. They came not only with their machines but with one assistant each. The dusky silence of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha was broken with the sounds of three typewriters clacking, three voices reading out passages, and three regular series of grunts, “Uh, what? What?” No one, to give them full credit for their patience and tolerance, minded the disturbance. One or two asked me solicitously, “Too bad! Does this mean you are leaving us soon?” which made me in turn regretful about my imminent departure.

The pages of typed Hindi were beautiful, but there is no match, I still claim, for what Nagendra Sharma could achieve. Whenever I see a page of closely written notes, I feel it must be his. Strange to think of it, all this brought us very close together. I habitually addressed him as “Nagendra bhai,” a form that came easily to me, and before I knew it I was established as his older sister. This was no mere formality. I was his wife’s sister-in-law, his parents’ daughter, his children’s bua (paternal aunt), and many convoluted relationships with the rest of his large extended family. Unhappily, none of the other kin categories came easily to me; I could never address anyone appropriately, nor could I keep up the banter and lighthearted conversation that went with my new position.