Haalkhaata;the traditional ledger

When I was a little child, there were many words In Bangla which posed a difficulty while writing or pronouncing them. But, Akshay Tritiya was never one of them! I could write and pronounce it with ease as I would wait the whole year for this day. Akshay Tritiya was an important occasion for us. It meant countless invitations from the shop-owners, wearing pretty dresses and eating “mishti’! My eyes would also be on those huge, tightly bound, red -covered books that the owners kept with great care.

I did not know what those big, long, red books were. But, the smell of fresh, new stationery has always attracted me. Those books looked regal as they sat piled up one after the other on the little desk of the Mahajan (trader).

My grandmother's Haalkhaata

I had my first Haalkhaata when I turned 10. My paternal great grandmother had passed away. Her almirah was left open and we were given the freedom to choose anything that we liked from her wardrobe. My eyes never left her Haalkhaata. It was my biggest treasure, as I would spend hours scribbling and drawing on that book. It was a possession of pride as well. I exhibited it to my mates in school who had never seen such a big notebook.

My attachment and nostalgia with the ‘Haalkhaata’ continued. My maternal grandmother passed away last year. Probably, she knew she would not last long and had distributed most of her belongings to my aunts and grandchildren. After her passage, Ma handled me a big, long bundle wrapped in a sari. It was a Haalkhaata that our forefathers had used. My grandmother was aware of my fetish for stationery and my love for Haalkhaata.

The entry on the Haalkhaata shows that it dates back to the Bengali year of 1300. It was written nearly 121 years ago by my paternal great great grandfather. It’s unimaginable. It has the handwritten entries of my great grandfather followed by my grandmother who managed our Zamindari. Those were the days when we did not have ready-to-use, fancy fountain pens. The initial writings are with the help of a feather dipped in ink.

 A page from the Haalkhaata

This Haalkhaata is a repository of memories. It accounts for the power and authority our family wielded over vast areas of Bengal, the taxes paid by them, the yield from crops and then proceeds to cover details of how we lost one after the other. My father says ‘a generation builds property and wealth painstakingly, and the next generation spends time squandering them away’. In our case, disputes, illegal acquisition and betrayal by the field officers were some reasons behind our loss of wealth and power.

The handwriting over the period of years is another treasure of mine. It can put Calligraphy to shame. Those fancy twirls, the loops and the bends are a delight. Writing is indeed an art!

Haalkhaata, as the name describes is a traditional notebook which depicts your ‘haal’ or state of affairs or one’s current stake. It’s a log book which describes each and every affair of the business. Every single rupee, paisa or anna spent or received would find an entry into it. It was maintained by the men of the household or the Karmacharis (the designated staff). There was not just one, but many haalkhaatas depending on the magnitude of the household/business.

Haalkhaatas are remnants of the Zamindari culture. Zamindars or landowners had vast tracts of land scattered around with innumerable ‘prajas’ (the people who lived in these areas or worked for the Zamindars). Accounts related to maintenance of land, taxes paid by the ‘prajas’, yield from crops, losses incurred were some of the major overheads in this ledger. A detailed accounting was necessary to keep track of all these activities. Hence every property had its own haalkhaata, maintained and regularly updated by the overseer/Nayeb.

Haalkhaatas for the household expenses were separate and in most cases maintained by the women of the family, with inputs from the Nayeb.

This how the entries were made

Haalkhaatas are usually very long and rectangular and has a white thread to tie it around securely. The regal, red cover is made from a kind of grass called ‘Khero’, hence the name ‘Kheror Khaata’ used by many.

This system of accounting continued as long as the Zamindars held their sway. After that, it was used mainly for household expenses. The practice continued till the households switched to smaller, less bulky, convenient notebooks. The tradition, finally, lost the battle with the advent of digital media.

Haalkhaata is still prevalent in small towns of West Bengal amongst the traders. They consider it a good omen for account keeping. A petty goldsmith in Burdwan, tells me, ‘I did switch over to small notebooks and diaries once. And that year proved to be a disaster. I had never seen such huge losses and the reasons were inexplicable. It was much later that I realized that the Goddess Lakshmi was angry with me. I did a special Pujo to please the Goddess and Lord Ganesha and bought a new haalkhaata. My business never saw a bad day since then’. Such is their belief in the traditional accounting system.

Every Akshaya Tritiya, the old haalkhaatas are replaced with newer, richer versions of the logbook. It starts with a Puja in the morning where Lord Ganesha and Goddess Lakshmi are venerated. The new haalkhaatas are placed as an offering to the deities during the Pujo. A streak of Haldi/turmeric is applied to each of them. ‘Om Ganeshai Namah’ is written on the first page. The entries start from the next page. Guests are invited to this ceremony and food packets are distributed to all.

This is a festival in itself, though restricted to small towns and some pockets in Kolkata.