Book review: For Pepper and Christ, by Keki Daruwalla

 

Keki Daruwalla, a prominent Indian author, passed away on September 26, 2024. To my shame, though I had known of Daruwalla and his writings, I hadn’t read any of his works. When I heard of his sad demise. I hastily scanned through the list of his books, purchased For Pepper and Christ and read it as fast as I could, which, thanks to my other commitments, took me two months. 

“In the fifteen century, Portugal was a poor country of just about a million, but it had ambitions- the poor need to have more ambitions than the rich. Why not? They wanted gold and slaves and spices; and they wanted to cut out Venice and Genoa who bought pepper, ginger and cinnamon from the Ottomans and Mamluks at excessive prices and sold them to Europe at even more exorbitant rates. What a ducat could buy in Calicut, cost over sixty in Venice.”

 The Portuguese desperately wanted to find a way to India so that they could load their ships with spices and sell them in Europe where Indian spices fetched a fortune. The spice trade was controlled by the Arabs and they did not really want to give up their monopoly. This was an era when none knew for sure how the oceans ended and continents began, when maps were rare and involved more of guesswork and less of cartography. The Portuguese believed that the paradise kingdom of Prester John existed and looked for him everywhere, from Africa to Asia. The Arabs (whom the Portuguese called the Moors) were good fighters on land, but were totally outmatched by the Portuguese at sea, especially since the Portuguese had guns mounted on their ships.

In For Pepper and Christ, Daruwalla uses three narrators. The first voice is that of Brother Figueiro, a member of Captain-Major Vasco da Gama’s fleet on the 1497-98 voyage, as also the one in 1502. The second speaker is young pilot Taufiq, who hails from Oman and ended up showing Vasco da Gama the way to Calicut. Taufiq has lived in Gujarat as a boy, while accompanying his father on the latter’s sailing trips. He has sailed under the guidance of the legendary Ibn Majid and his feeling his way around the world. When Daruwalla starts his narration, Taufiq has been sent to Cairo for his studies at al Azhar and has made friends with Ehtesham, the painter and Murad, an eccentric, but street smart lad. Then, there’s also a neutral narrator, to fill in all the gaps. 

In Daruwalla’s own words, a historical novel is neither history nor fiction. Or perhaps, it is both. Daruwalla does not grudge spending pages on history. There are frequent references to the crusades of the past, as bitter memories spill out from the mouths of Cairenes, even as the Mamulks who defeated the Mongols control Cairo. Daruwalla’s history writing does distract the reader from the story, but then, there is no real story, since when one reads  For Pepper and Christ, one reads the history one already knows, the history of Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the trade route to India, but that’s not true, I tell you. Daruwalls is a good story-teller, as he tells us the story of Taufiq and his friends Ehtesham and Murad and of Muhtasib, who torments all three of them in various ways. The famous navigator Ibn Majid (under whom Taufiq trained) gets a look in.

Muhtasib, the feared inspector of weights and measures, lords it over the people of Cairo and I found his character to be just as fascinating as that of the Vasco da Gama. Muhtasib thinks painting is akin to creation, an action reserved for Allah, and hence, blasphemy. So, he is not too fond of Ehtesham the painter, who has taken on a contract to paint his pictures inside a Coptic church in Cairo. ‘Doesn’t a potter make his urns, doesn’t a farmer create his wheat, or a weaver his cloth? Are they committing a crime against Allah?’ Ehtesham asks Mutasib and this argument we know, continues even now in the 21^st century.

Daruwalla’s narration is placid most of the time, even when he tells us of the Portuguese pouring boiling oil on abducted pilots as they are forced to reveal the sea route to India. The Portuguese suffer a lot as they journey around the Cape. “Scurvy had already taken a toll of our men before we reached Mozambique. Their hands and feet had bloated, the gums turning purple and swelling to an extent that they draped the teeth.” Daruwalla’s language is like that of the ocean, with many dangerous currents underneath.

Are the Portuguese the most cruel folk in the entire saga? The Portuguese are best at organised violence, but the Arabs and even the Zamorin are no laggards when in comes to cruelty. Interestingly, the King of Cochin, a rival of the Calicut Zamorin, is keen to have ties with the Portuguese and Daruwalla has a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka try and fix deals for the King of Cochin.

Vasco da Gama and the rest of the Portguguese have only hatred and distrust for the Moors. On landing in Calicut, they mistake the hindus for Christians and looks for ways to persuade them to evict all moors. The gifts that they Portuguese have carried with them are very inadequate, but they persist and survive. Vasco da Gama never takes goodwill on face value, never brings his ship too close to the shore (lest it be captured) and does not hesitate to take hostages  whenever he has a demand.

Daruwalla describes in gory detail how the Portuguese under Pedro Álvares Cabral bombarded Calicut in 1500–01, when they returned for the second time and caused a lot of death and destruction in Calicut.  The incident of the pilgrim ship Mirim is also described in detail. On returning to India in October 1502, at Madayi in Kannur, da Gama's fleet intercepted Mirim, a ship of Muslim pilgrims travelling from Kozhikode to Mecca. Da Gama looted the ship and killed all its passengers, including a number of women and children, by burning the ship. Those who jumped into the sea were speared and killed.

Taufiq had shown the Portuguese the route to Calicut without suffering any tortures, but he later repents (as he finds out how cruel the Portuguese can be) and punishes himself. Please read this excellent novel to find out how Daruwalla provides for Taufiq’s punishment.

 On the whole, I found For Pepper and Christ to be an excellent read, one which any history buff would enjoy.  Highly recommended. I do wish I had been lucky enough to have 'discovered' Daruwalla earlier and hope I manage to find time to read at least some of his other books in the near future.