Train to Delhi (10 page)

‘I'm now a Christian. A few days ago I was a Hindu,' he said. ‘And I wouldn't mind becoming a Muslim. I don't believe in these religions—they all condone violence, instigate their followers to kill …'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Don't sir me, please. Call me Gautam. That's my name.'

But she couldn't bring herself to calling him by name as there was something very dignified about the man.

‘Are you a civil servant?' Haseena asked. Her eyes had partly dried up. She was now anxious to know something about this man.

‘No, a journalist. I write for
The Challenge.
Do you read it?'

‘Only casually,' she replied. ‘At home we get
The Statesman.'

‘A much better paper,' Gautam said. ‘Are you a graduate?'

‘I was studying for my BA when I was whisked away from the college gate by some masked men. Pannalal's accomplices, surely.'

‘What college?'

‘Islamia.'

‘I see,' said Gautam.

Now he understood everything. But there was no more time to talk. He looked at his watch and exclaimed: ‘Just fifteen minutes more. Please get yourself ready. Our jailer must be out there waiting for us,' he said. Then, quite impulsively he asked: ‘Is there anything I could do for you?'

‘Can you rescue me from my captors, take me back to Allahabad?' There was a ring of humble supplication in her voice. ‘It's very risky, I know. They could kill us both. I've been threatened with death if I ever tried to escape.'

‘So you're living in a sort of concentration camp.'

Instantly, something flashed through his mind.

‘Do you know the topography of this place?' he asked.

‘Fairly well,' she whispered. ‘I wish we had the time to go up the tower and have a look all around.'

‘There's no time now, I'm afraid.'

They both looked at each other, their minds on the same wavelength.

‘How about meeting here again,' said Gautam, ‘say, next Saturday?'

A faint smile rippled across her face; for a moment she'd forgotten her pain.

‘But what have you got for your money, Gautam?' The name now slipped through. ‘Tears and words—and now a hazardous undertaking? An utterly losing bargain!'

As Gautam opened the door, there stood Pannalal in the passageway, beaming. Surely, his customer had had his money's worth, the pimp thought. But, when he noticed that Haseena looked happy, he felt somewhat disturbed. No, he didn't like his girls to get involved with strangers. That wasn't professional. This fledgling would have to be broken properly, he told himself.

‘How did it go, sir?' he asked.

‘Marvellous! I didn't have enough time, though.'

‘You could have carried on, sir,' the man said, in his customary tone, ‘no extra charge, of course.'

‘Oh, well …' Gautam mumbled. ‘Maybe you could fix me another round.' Gautam hated himself for using such vulgar language. But he knew that it was the only way to keep the man off the scent.

‘Most certainly,' he said. ‘The same girl or someone else? Why not try out another peach—equally exciting?'

Had the man become suspicious? Maybe that was the reason why he wanted him unstuck from Haseena.

‘No, I might as well round it off with this girl, if you don't mind … Next Saturday then—same time?'

‘Yes, sir.'

Pannalal asked Haseena to take cover under the burkha, and instantly she was whisked away.

A few minutes later, Gautam arrived at Neel Kamal. Berry was sitting with a foreigner, boozing.

‘Meet Bob Cunningham,' Berry said, pointing towards his companion. ‘An Englishman from Surrey. Works for Philips.' Then, turning to the foreigner, he said: ‘This is Gautam. And haven't I told you everything about him already?'

Bob nodded smilingly.

‘How d'you do?'

‘How d'you do?'

Gautam glanced at the Englishman who appeared to be in his late thirties. But his chestnut hair, parted on the side, his slender moustache and an air of buoyancy about him, made him look much younger.

‘Well, won't you both drop this how-do-you-doing?' said Berry.

‘Yes,' said Bob. ‘Imagine,' he added, ‘we met just a couple of hours ago, and we've already hit it off.'

‘And he has told you
everything
about me?'

‘Yes.'

‘And I assume you'd have told Berry
everything
about yourself?'

‘Quite a bit, I suppose.'

‘But that's most un-English,' said Gautam. ‘You British always take time warming up.' Gautam plunged into an audacious informality, encouraged by Bob's openness. ‘I often meet my English friends at the Press Club,' he continued, ‘Mark Gwynn of the
Guardian,
Sylvan Baxter of the
Times,
Clive Ricks of the
Telegraph
—and they're all the same. Know any of them?'

‘No,' replied Bob. ‘Maybe I'm an exception, being part Indian. I didn't let Berry in on that. You see, my grandfather was born in Calcutta, and over the past several years, the family has been travelling back and forth.'

‘So that explains your love of Indian food—rogan josh, hot chutney,' Gautam said, seeing the waiter bring in a tray loaded with spicy dishes.

‘And dark girls—that's hot too,' Bob said, taking a large swig of his whisky.

‘That's certainly most unusual,' said Gautam.

‘Un-English again,' said Bob. ‘Why, a divorcee has to keep himself going somehow.'

As Bob threw in these intimate details about himself, the other two felt still more closely drawn towards him.

‘Well, Gautam is a divorcee too,' said Berry. ‘I don't know why I didn't tell you that. But he's just a fledgling—only a few days old.'

‘So we're two against one,' quipped Bob.

‘But to Berry,' said Gautam, ‘a wife is only an appendix. His main preoccupation is exploring other territories.'

‘A wife's never enough, you know,' said Berry.

‘Never!' concurred Bob. Then turning to Gautam, he said: ‘But we've been waiting to hear about your great rendezvous. How did it go? How was she in bed?'

‘Oh, you've been talking about this … Well, I didn't quite get there. I hope to do it next Saturday.'

While Berry looked a little mystified, Bob said: ‘Tremendous self-control. You Indians can do the ropewalking with such finesse, balancing yourself between the Kama Sutra and the Gita.'

‘It's a sort of yoga, you see,' Gautam said, inwardly intending to tell Berry about Haseena, but only privately. ‘It comes with arduous training—the art of turning oneself on and off any moment.'

Both Berry and Bob laughed.

‘Was she dark?' Bob asked.

‘There he lapses into darkness again,' Gautam said. ‘No, she was of light wheatish complexion … But why this obsession with dark girls?'

‘Maybe I've seen too much of light,' Bob said, smiling. ‘So isn't it now time to try out some other pigmentation?' He paused. ‘You know, Bill Thornton also has a fascination for dark girls …'

‘You mean the police commissioner?' Berry asked, quite surprised.

‘Yes,' Bob answered. ‘In fact, we're both planning to go down south, to the Malabar Coast, on a holiday trip. If he ever gets off the hook … Not a moment's rest for him. Poor man!'

‘Then you're quite close to the heart of the Indian administration,' Gautam said, also looking impressed.

‘Or Anglo-Indian?' quipped Berry.

‘That's not being fair to the man,' said Bob. ‘In any case, we don't intend giving up on you. There are always ways of hanging on, you know.'

‘That's clear enough,' said Berry. ‘Lord Mountbatten, your Bill—and some English priests operating here and there.'

‘But I'm neither with the bureaucracy, nor with the missionaries,' said Bob. ‘I work for a private British company here, and I propose to stay on as long as possible. Because I love your country, in spite of its heat and dust.'

The waiter showed up again to ask if they'd like to have anything else.

‘No please,' Gautam said, taking out his wallet.

‘Let me take care of this evening,' Bob insisted.

‘Very un-English of you again,' said Berry. ‘Why don't we go Dutch?'

‘No, I insist,' said Bob. ‘In fact, I should very much like to have you both over at my house some evening. I have a fairly good cook, I think. But, let me assure you, it wouldn't be insipid British food—steam-boiled Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs …'

‘Thank you,' said Gautam.'

‘And you'll meet a very special friend of mine,' said Bob.

‘A lady?' asked Berry.

‘Yes.'

‘Indian?' Berry pressed on.

‘Yes.'

‘So you're already well organized,' said Berry.

‘I guess so; otherwise, a divorcee's life in a foreign country could be awfully dull, you know.'

‘Even on his own native grounds,' said Gautam. ‘That's why Berry tried to pull me out of my blues.'

‘But it didn't work out this evening, it seems,' said Berry.

‘No.'

Berry looked at Gautam, puzzled.

As they stepped out of Neel Kamal, Bob offered to drop them home.

‘Splendid,' said Berry. ‘We should feel honoured to be escorted by a friend of William Thornton's.'

10

T
wo days after Gautam's encounter with Haseena at the Bridge, Delhi witnessed an unprecedented explosion of communical frenzy. A report in a local Hindu paper,
Our Land,
described in lurid details how a passerby had seen ‘some members of the minority community' shovelling the mutilated carcass of a cow into the Shiva temple, near St. John's. The same paper carried an inflammatory editorial, demanding prompt action against the criminals, ‘otherwise the Indian nation would feel provoked to wipe out those who, while living in our country, owe their allegiance to a foreign power.' The ‘criminals' were, of course, the Indian Muslims and the ‘foreign power' was Pakistan.

The paper then branded all Englishmen, staying on in India, as pro-Muslim, and accused them of acting clandestinely in collusion with the Pakistani spies. In fact, the highly incendiary tone of the article was directed as much against Muslims as against ‘the British colonialists'. Lord Mountbatten, in league with Anglo-Indians and British missionaries, was alleged to be engaged in a diabolic conspiracy against ‘our efforts to consolidate the fruits of freedom'.

‘As for Mahatma Gandhi,' the paper commented, ‘his self-professed saintliness wouldn't help us run the administration. His utterance that while he loves the individual Englishman, he is against all forms of imperialism, is too mild a protest against our erstwhile rulers, who had ruthlessly exploited our motherland for over two hundred years. How can we call him Father of the Nation when he has dedicated himself exclusively to the welfare of Muslims? While he should have stayed back in Delhi to participate in the celebration of our independence, he chose to work for the Muslims in Noakhali. His prayer meetings, at which he recites verses from the Koran, are an affront to our Hindu dharma. What has the Mahatma to say about the desecration of our sacred temples and the molestation of our women in Pakistan? If he persists in his one-sided commitment, he may soon have to pay dearly for it. In fact, his recent speeches and actions leave us in no doubt that he is itching for martyrdom, so that he may be ranked with Jesus Christ, Thomas Beckett and the Buddha.'

The paper went on to say: ‘At this critical juncture, what we need is an Indian Jinnah, a Hindu Messiah, who would fearlessly weed out all treacherous elements from our Holy Land.'

The article concluded with the slogan: ‘Har Har Mahadev.'

Althugh
Our Land
was immediately banned, some copies of the issue, carrying the inflammatory article, still dodged the police. Mimeographed leaflets of this editorial were secretly circulated all over the country. Within two days, India was in the grip of another cycle of communal frenzy. Thousands of Muslims were massacred, their houses burnt, and their property looted. Muslims too retaliated furiously.

In Delhi, William Thornton imposed a curfew from dawn to dusk. All public places—clubs, hotels, schools and colleges—were closed for two days. The curfew was lifted for only three hours in the morning to enable shoppers to pick up their groceries.

Ironically, as the communal violence spread, the weather cooled off. On the blackest day of rioting, the sky unfolded a large rainbow, all the seven colours laid out in sharply demarcated bands, like variegated silken pennons. Then poured down the rain, relentlessly, over the dead bodies of men, women and children rotting on the pavements, waiting to be hauled away by the police.

Gautam had told Berry all about Haseena and how he'd committed himself to helping her. Both of them now worked out a plan for the great rescue. But Gautam was caught up in a terrible anxiety. Would the curfew be over by next Saturday?

Fortunately, it was lifted on the third day, and as Gautam reached his office, his chief editor announced a special issue of
The Challenge
to expose the reactionary ideology propagated by
Our Land.
‘If India,' he said, ‘was to forge ahead, she must shake off all religious bigotry. The basic issues involved were more economic than communal.'

All this fell in with Gautam's own planning. When he asked his editor if he could be sent to Allahabad, another hotbed of violence, to report on the scene there, and also do an article on communal harmony, his suggestion was readily accepted.

On Friday evening, as he sat on the divan in his room at Anand Parbat, piecing together his notes for the article, his mother walked in, looking flustered.

‘Purnima's here to see you. I hope there's no more trouble for us.'