by Satyajit Ray
The crickets had stopped. A bird called somewhere . . . once, twice, thrice . . . it sounded like a shrill whistle.
He looked at the car again, and felt afraid. The broken glass and the red, damp patch on the road also frightened him. Was there red splashed anywhere else? Yes, on his shirt, his arms, and his socks. He should not remain standing here. That road . . . he could see it stretch ahead, winding and curving around bends. In the distance, the trees thinned out. Perhaps that was where the forest ended.
He started walking in that direction. He could make it. It was clear to him that he was not badly hurt. Those other two men were. Or perhaps they were dead. If his head stopped aching, and the cut on his elbow healed, and if he stopped limping, he could quite easily claim to be in perfect health—if anyone were to ask, that is.
What was most puzzling was why he could not remember anything. What had happened before he opened his eyes and saw those stars in the sky? He could not even remember his name. All he knew was that there was a badly damaged car lying on the road with two men in it who were not moving at all. He was walking down a road, there were grassy patches here and there, and the sky was blue. Now it had started to turn red, which meant that the sun was rising, and so it was morning. All this he knew, but nothing else.
He kept walking. The birds were chirping continuously. He could recognize some of the trees. That one was a banyan, and that one was a mango tree, and here was a silk-cotton, and . . . what was that? Guava? Yes, he could see guavas hanging from the branches.
One look at those guavas made him realize he was hungry. He went closer to the tree. Thank goodness he had found it. There was fruit on the mango trees, too. But they were on the higher branches which he could not have climbed with an injured leg. The guavas were well within his reach. He quickly ate two and resumed walking.
The road finally came to an end. It merged into a bigger road, which went in two different directions. Where should he go? He turned right without thinking too much about it. Only a few steps later, he suddenly felt so tired that he had to sit down under a tree. He could not tell what the tree was called, but noticed that its trunk had black and white stripes on it. In fact, all the trees he could see on this side of the road had similar stripes. How had they got there? Who had painted them black and white? He did not know. He could not think.
His head was throbbing once more. He could feel his lips tremble. Then he took a deep breath, and his eyes filled with tears. In the next instant, the road, the trees, the black, the white, the yellow, the green . . . everything was gone, wiped clean before his eyes as he sank into a dark abyss.
2
There was something moving in front of his eyes. It was the head of a man. There was a turban on his head, and the man had a beard. But no. It wasn’t the head that was moving. He was moving himself. The bearded man was shaking him gently.
‘Doodh pee lo, beta, garam doodh,’ the man was saying. In his hand was a glass of milk. Little coils of steam were rising from it.
Now he could see and hear everything clearly. He was lying in the back of a loaded truck. He was lying on one side, on a sheet. Another sheet was draped over him, and under his head, acting as a pillow, was a small bundle of clothes.
He took the glass from the man and sat up. The truck was parked along a road. There was a tea shop on the opposite side. Outside it, a few people were seated on a bench, drinking tea. There were some more shops, one of which was possibly for car repair. Clanking noises came from it. A man was standing next to a black car parked outside this shop. He was wiping his glasses.
The man with the turban had disappeared into the tea shop. Now he reappeared and returned to the truck. With him came all the other men who were sitting on the bench.
‘What’s your name?’ the man asked in Hindi.
‘I don’t know.’ The glass of milk, which he was still holding in his hand, was now half-empty. The milk tasted very good.
‘You don’t know? What do you mean?’
He remained silent. The man with the turban went on, ‘Where are you from? How did you get hurt? Was there anyone else with you? Where did they go?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘What’s the matter? Who’s this boy?’ asked a different voice. The man who was standing by the black car had come forward to enquire. He was not all that old, but his hair was decidedly thin. He was staring hard at the boy, screwing his eyes in concentration. The man with the turban explained quickly. It was all quite simple, really. The man was a truck driver. He had found the boy lying unconscious by the roadside. So he had picked him up, thinking that when he came to, the boy would be able to give his name and address. If he had turned out to be from Calcutta, the truck driver would have taken him to his house.
The other gentleman—a Bengali, as it happened—came closer. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.
This, of course, was his biggest problem. Why couldn’t he remember his name? Once again, he was forced to say, ‘I don’t know.’ The truck driver burst out laughing.
‘That’s all he’s been saying!’
‘You don’t know your own name? Or do you mean you cannot remember?’ the second man asked again.
‘I cannot remember.’
Now the gentleman noticed his injured elbow. ‘Where else does it hurt?’
The boy pointed at his bruised knees. ‘And your head? Did you hurt your head as well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me have a look. Can you bend your head?’
He bent his head obediently. The gentleman examined the part that was swollen. As he touched it briefly, the boy flinched. ‘I think there’s a cut . . . there’s dried blood in your hair. Do you think you could climb down? Let’s see. Come on, gently.’
He passed the glass to the truck driver and slid forward. Then he stretched an arm. The second man caught it, and helped him down carefully, making sure it did not hurt him. Then he had a brief chat with the truck driver. Kharagpur was only thirty miles away. The Bengali gentleman would take him there and get him examined by a doctor. Then, once his wounds had been cleaned and dressed, he could be taken to Calcutta.
‘Take him straight to a thana,’ said the truck driver. ‘I think there’s something wrong somewhere.’
It took the boy a while to grasp the meaning of the word thana. Then he heard the word ‘police’ being mentioned. Suddenly, his heart started beating faster. The police? Didn’t they catch thieves and punish them? Was he a thief? He had no idea. What might the police do to him?
The gentleman was going to drive the car himself. He helped him settle into the seat next to the driver. Then he started the car. In a few minutes, the shops and other buildings disappeared. On both sides of the road stretched open fields. Occasionally, he could catch the gentleman looking curiously at him out of the corner of his eye. It did not take him long to start asking questions again.
‘Do you live in Calcutta?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can’t you remember anyone in your family? Your mother? Father? Brothers or sisters? Anyone at all?’
‘No.’
Then, purely voluntarily, he offered the man some information. He told him what he did remember, about the previous night, about the broken car, and the two men in it.
‘Did you see the number of that car?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Can you remember what those men looked like?’
He described a few things he could recall. The gentleman frowned but did not ask him any more questions. His frown remained fixed throughout their journey.
A little later, the boy glanced at the watch the gentleman was wearing. It was now two o’clock. He began to toy with the idea of telling this man that he was hungry. A couple of guavas and a glass of milk were not enough to keep hunger at bay. As things turned out, he did not have to say anything. His companion stopped the car near a stone by the road, which said ‘Kharagpur: 12 km’. Then he opened a white cardboard box and t
ook out puris and vegetables from it. He handed some of it to the boy, then finished the rest.
When they had eaten, they set off again. The numbers that appeared on stones grew less and less. The city of Kharagpur became visible in the distance as soon as they passed a stone with the digit two on it. ‘Have you ever visited Kharagpur?’ asked the gentleman.
The name of the place meant nothing to him. How could he remember whether he had visited it or not? ‘There is a big school here called the IIT,’ his companion informed him. The word ‘IIT’ went round and round in his mind, until they reached the heart of town. The increased noise of the traffic wiped it out instantly.
There was a policeman standing at a crossing. Again, his heart began to tremble. ‘I don’t like the police!’ he blurted out.
The gentleman kept his eyes fixed on the road. ‘We will have to inform the police. Don’t worry about it. It’s obvious that you come from a good family. You may have forgotten who your parents are but I am sure they have not forgotten you. If we are to find out where you live, I’m afraid we have got to take help from the police. Only they can make enquiries. There’s no reason to be afraid. The police do a lot of good work, too.’
They found a pharmacy. The doctor there bathed his grazed knees with a lotion. Then he cleaned the wound on his elbow, smeared some ointment on a piece of cottonwool, and placed it over the wound. To hold it in place, he put some adhesive plaster over it. Ice was applied to the injury on his head. When this was done, the Bengali gentleman asked the doctor, ‘How far is the nearest police station from here?’
Before the doctor could make a reply, the boy said, ‘I . . . I would like to use your bathroom.’
‘All right. Come with me.’ The doctor got to his feet and went out through a rear door. Behind it was a passage. He pointed at a door at the far end. ‘That’s the bathroom,’ he said.
The boy found it, and quickly bolted the door. After using the lavatory, he saw to his relief that there was another door that opened to the street outside. He unbolted it and slipped out.
If he turned right, he realized, he would find himself on the main road. That meant he might be seen and caught. He turned left. Where should he go now? He had no idea, but at least he was not going to be handed over to the police. The thought gave him courage. There were some people in that lane. His bloodstained clothes, the dressing on his elbow, and the way he limped did attract a certain amount of attention. A few people cast curious glances at him, but no one said anything.
He continued to walk. Suddenly, he heard a train whistle. The lane came to an end. Here was another big road, full of bustling crowds. No one had the time to look at him. On his left was a long iron railing, beyond which lay a number of railway tracks. A freight train was standing on one of these. The whistle he had heard before seemed closer and louder. Now he noticed a pole; a few small horizontal bars with red and green lights on them were fixed at the top. What was it called? It had a name, but he could not remember it.
There, he could now see the station. It was quite big. A train was standing at a platform. Lots of people were getting in and out of it. He limped into the station. The train was right in front of him. The engine whistled again. A voice whispered urgently in his head: ‘You must get into that train. Come on. Here’s your chance!’
All around him, there were people running, shouting, pulling, pushing. He was nearly knocked over by a large bundle slung across somebody’s shoulder, but he managed to recover his balance. In the same instant, he realized that the train had started. The carriages were moving away. He went forward as quickly as he could. But all the doors were shut. How could he get in if he couldn’t find an open door?
There, just one door appeared to be open. Could he climb in? No. He was not strong enough. But that voice had become more insistent. ‘Go on,’ it said, ‘do it. You’ll never get another chance.’
He stretched out an arm. The handle of the open door was only a few inches away. He would have to run with the train, then grab the handle and jump aboard. If he slipped, he would be . . . it would take only a second . . .
His feet were no longer on the ground. They had not slipped. Someone from the train had stretched out his arm and thrown it across his waist before hoisting him up in one swift motion. He was in the carriage, quite safe.
A voice spoke, sharply and irritably: ‘What did you think you were doing? Is this your idea of having fun? Shall I kick your lame leg?’
3
He was sitting on his seat, panting. He was having to breathe so hard that, even if he wished to speak, he could not do so. All he could do was stare at the man who had spoken. Although he had spoken sharply, he did not appear to be all that cross. Or perhaps he had been cross to start with, but a closer look at the injured boy had made him soften. Now, the man’s eyes were twinkling. He smiled, his bright white teeth glinting in the sun. It seemed as if the man’s head was packed with clever ideas. He could spend a whole lifetime making them work.
There were other people in the carriage, but just the two of them on this seat. Three old men sat opposite them. One of them was fast asleep. The second one took a pinch of some dark powder, held it close to his nostrils and inhaled deeply. The third man was reading a newspaper. As the train rocked and swayed with increasing speed, he had to clutch his paper more firmly and bring it closer to his eyes.
‘All right, what’s your game?’ The man still sounded serious, but the twinkle in his eyes had not gone. He was looking steadily at the boy, as if he could read his mind.
The boy remained silent. His only aim was to avoid the police. But he could not bring himself to say so. To his complete astonishment, the man asked, ‘The police? Is it anything to do with them? Are you trying to smuggle rice?’
There was still no answer. The man went on, ‘No, I don’t think so. You are from a good family. You wouldn’t have enough strength to carry a sack of rice.’
The boy stared back in silence. ‘What do I have to do to make you talk?’ asked the man. ‘Look,’ he added, moving a little closer and lowering his voice, ‘you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone else. Trust me. I ran away from home, too. Just like you.’
The boy knew what was going to follow: the now-familiar question regarding his name. So he opened his mouth and asked, ‘What’s your name?’ before the man could say anything.
‘Never mind about my name. What’s yours?’ the man shot back.
By this time, he was tired of saying ‘I don’t know’. Only a little while ago, opposite the pharmacy in Kharagpur, he had seen a name on a signboard. Painted in black on a white board were the words: Mahamaya Stores. Below it was written ‘Prop: Fotikchandra Pal’.
‘Fotik,’ he said quickly.
‘Your name’s Fotik? Is that your pet name, or real name?’ ‘Real name.’
‘What’s your title?’
‘Title?’
‘Surname. Can you understand what that means?’
He looked blank. Neither the word ‘title’ nor ‘surname’ meant anything to him.
‘The word that comes at the end of a name. Like Tagore, after Rabindranath. Look, are you really stupid, or just pretending to be so? It won’t take me long to find out, you know.’
Now he began to understand. He knew what ‘surname’ meant. The words ‘at the end of a name’ had done the trick. ‘Pal,’ he said quickly, ‘my surname is Pal. That’s at the end. In the middle is Chandra. Fotikchandra Pal.’
The man continued to stare for a while. Then he offered his right hand. ‘Anyone who can make up a name at the drop of a hat is a gifted artist. Come on, shake hands with Harun, Fotikchandra Pal. Harun, then “al”, and then Rashid. Harun-al-Rashid: Emperor of Baghdad, monarch among jugglers.’
He shook hands with the man, but felt a bit put out by his open disbelief. Why couldn’t his name be Fotik? How did this man guess it was a false name?
‘In the kind of family that you come from, no one would dream of using an old-fashioned name like Fotikc
hand,’ the man declared, giving him a steady look. ‘Let me look at your hands.’
Before he could say anything, the man grabbed one of his hands and examined his palm. ‘Hm . . . I see. You’ve never had to travel by public buses, have you? Hanging from a rod like a bat? . . . Your shirt must have cost at least forty-five chips . . . expensive trousers . . . and you’ve recently had a haircut at a fashionable salon. In Park Street, was it?’
Clearly, he was expected to make a reply. What could he say? ‘I cannot remember,’ he said truthfully.
Suddenly, the man’s eyes narrowed and started glinting strangely. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘don’t try acting funny with the Emperor of Baghdad. Nothing will work here. You go to a good, expensive school, don’t you? You meet a lot of other rich boys. So you fell into bad company, and decided to run away from your Dad when the going got tough. You think I can’t figure that out for myself? How did you hurt your elbow? Why is your head swollen? Why are you limping? You’ll have to tell me everything. Now. Or I’ll throw you out on the platform at the next station. I swear. So come on, out with it.’
He began talking. Not because he was afraid of the man’s threats, but because suddenly he felt he could trust him. Here was an ally. This man would understand, he would not harm him, nor hand him over to the police. So he told him whatever he could remember, from the moment he opened his eyes in the forest to the moment when he slipped out of the bathroom in the pharmacy.
The man heard him in silence; then he stared out of the window, looking thoughtful. Finally, he shook his head and turned back to him. ‘Well, you’ll need a place in Calcutta. You couldn’t possibly stay where I live.’
‘You live in Calcutta?’
‘Yes. I’ve lived there before, and I’m going to live there again. I have a room, in a place called Entally. I travel from time to time, to fairs and festivals. Sometimes, I get called to perform at weddings. Right now, I am coming from Coimbatore. Do you know where it is? It’s near Madras. I was there for three weeks—lived purely on idlis and dosas. I’ve spoken to a circus company. Venkatesh—a trapeze artiste in the Great Diamond Circus—is a friend of mine. He’ll let me know as soon as there’s a vacancy. But I have to go back to Calcutta for the time being. All indeed is a little patch of grass under Shaheed Minar.’