Three days after Pulak Ghoshal’s film completed twenty-five weeks in the Paradise cinema in Calcutta, a second-hand Mark 2 Ambassador drove up to our front door, blowing its horn and making a terrible racket. It was no ordinary horn. What it played, very loudly, was an entire set of musical notes. Pulak Ghoshal was a film director in Bombay, and his film running at the Paradise was based on a story written by Lalmohan Babu. We knew Lalmohan Babu was thinking of buying a car to mark the occasion, but did not realize that it would happen so soon. Actually, he had done more than buy a car. He had also appointed a driver as he could not drive himself. He had no wish to learn to drive, either. In fact, he made that comment repeatedly, so much so that one day, Feluda was obliged to ask him, ‘Why not?’ Lalmohan Babu had then offered an explanation. Apparently, five years ago, he had started taking lessons, using a friend’s car. After only two days, he had got into the car with a wonderful plot in his head. But, as he was switching to the second gear from the first, the car had given such an awful jerk that the plot for a new novel had flown straight out of his head, never to return. ‘I still regret its loss, I tell you!’ Lalmohan Babu sighed. His driver—clad in a white shirt and khaki trousers—got out and opened the door for Lalmohan Babu, who tried to hop out onto the pavement, caught his feet in the trailing end of his dhoti and nearly lost his balance, but the smile on his face remained in place. Feluda, however, was looking serious. He opened his mouth only when all three of us were seated inside. ‘Until you change that horrible horn to something more simple and civilized, your car cannot be allowed to enter our Rajani Sen Road,’ Feluda told him. Lalmohan Babu looked a bit rueful. ‘Yes, I knew I was taking a risk. But when the fellow in the shop gave a demo . . . well, it was just too tempting. It’s Japanese, you know.’ ‘It’s ear-splitting and nerve-racking,’ Feluda declared. ‘I had no idea Hindi films would influence you so quickly. And the colour of your car is equally painful. Reminds me of south Indian films!’ ‘Please, Mr Mitter!’ Lalmohan Babu pleaded, folding his hands, ‘I will change that horn tomorrow, but allow me to keep the colour. I find that green most soothing.’ Feluda gave up and was about to order some tea, when Lalmohan Babu interrupted him. ‘We can have tea later. Let’s first go for a drive. I won’t feel satisfied until I’ve given you and Master Tapesh a ride in my car. Where would you like to go?’ Feluda raised no objection. He thought for a moment and said, ‘I would like Topshe to see Charnock’s grave.’ ‘Charnock? Job Charnock?’ asked Lalmohan Babu, pronouncing the first name as ‘job’.

‘No,’ Feluda replied. ‘No? Are there other Charnocks?’ ‘Yes, I’m sure there are, but only one Charnock founded the city of Calcutta.’ ‘Yes. That’s who I . . . I mean . . .’ ‘His name was Job—pronounced Jobe. A job is work for which you are paid. Jobe is a man’s name. Most people mispronounce the name. You should know better.’ Feluda’s latest passion was old Calcutta. It started with a visit to Fancy Lane, where he had to go to investigate a murder. When he learnt that the word ‘fancy’ had come from the Indian word ‘phansi’, meaning death by hanging, and that two hundred years ago, Nanda Kumar had been hung in the same area, Feluda became deeply interested in the history of Calcutta. In the last three months, he had read endless books on the subject, looked at scores of pictures and studied dozens of maps. As a result, even I had gained some knowledge, chiefly by spending two afternoons at the Victoria Memorial. According to Feluda, although Calcutta was a ‘young’ city compared to Delhi and Agra, its importance could not be undermined. It was true that Calcutta did not have a Taj Mahal, or a Qutab Minar, or the kind of forts one might see in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, or even a famous alley like Vishwanath ki gali in Benaras. ‘But just think, Topshe,’ Feluda had said to me, ‘one day, an Englishman was sitting by the Ganges in a place that was really a jungle, packed with flies, mosquitoes and snakes, and this man thought he’d build a city in the same place. And then, in no time, the jungle was cleared, buildings were built, roads were made, rows of gas lights appeared, horses galloped down those roads, palkis ran, and in a hundred years, the new place came to be known as the city of palaces. What that same city has now been reduced to does not matter. I am talking simply of history. Now, some people want to change the street signs, rename them and wipe out history. But is that right? Or, for that matter, is it possible? All right, admittedly, what the British did was purely for their own convenience. But if they hadn’t, what would your Felu Mitter have done today? Try to picture the scene . . . your Feluda, Pradosh Chandra Mitter, private investigator . . . bent over a ledger, pushing a pen and working as a clerk in some zamindar’s office, where the term “fingerprint” would simply mean a man’s thumb impression on a document!’ We went to BBD Bagh, which was known as Dalhousie Square at one time, named after the same Lord Dalhousie who was once the Governor-General of India, well known for annexing Indian states and introducing the railways and the telegraph. Job Charnock’s tomb—said to be the first brick structure built in Calcutta—was in the compound of the two-hundred-year-old St John’s Church in BBD Bagh. Lalmohan