Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/93

 music; and the night brought other and less reputable amusements. Smoking hemp was a vice very prevalent then. There were in the city of Calcutta houses where hemp-smokers met, and passed hours, and even days, together with no other motive than to inhale the exhilarating fumes of ganja.

One house at Bowbazar was the most famous among these. The company that met here were each named after a bird, and so the name given to the association was “Birds’ Association.” A member on his admission received as a rule the name of a tiny bird, which, with his progress in hemp-smoking, would be changed into that of a larger one, and it was compulsory that he should imitate the sounds and movements of the feathered biped the name of which he bore. There is a funny story about one of these ganja smokers, who, having been missed by his father for several days, was at length found in the house at Bowbazar. As soon as he laid hold of his son, and attempted to drag him out, the young man, who was called “Woodpecker,” and who held between the teeth an apparatus resembling the beak of the prototype, commenced pecking his father.

We come next to the religious or spiritual attitude of the inhabitants of Calcutta at that time; and to enlighten the reader on this point we can do nothing better than quote the following passage from Babu Nagendranath Chatterjee’s “Life of Raja Rammohan Roy”:—

“The people of Calcutta did not observe the Vedic rites, or follow the doctrines inculcated by the Upanishads; but they delighted in offering sacrifices to Durga and celebrating the festivals in connection with Krishna’s birth and amours. Bathing in the holy Bhagirathi, feeding and making gifts to Brahmans and Vaishnavas, making distant pilgrimages, and observing the fast-days