by Ruskin Bond
I opened my mouth to make some explanation, but before I could say anything the woman replied: ‘Yes, I am Arun’s mother.’
I was unable to speak a word. I looked quickly up at the woman, but she did not appear to be at all embarrassed, and was smiling at Satish’s mother.
Satish’s mother said: ‘It’s such a nuisance having to wait for the train right in the middle of the night. But one can’t let the child wait here alone. Anything can happen to a boy at a big station like this, there are so many suspicious characters hanging about. These days one has to be very careful of strangers.’
‘Arun can travel alone though,’ said the woman beside me, and somehow I felt grateful to her for saying that. I had already forgiven her for lying: and besides, I had taken an instinctive dislike to Satish’s mother.
‘Well, be very careful Arun,’ said Satish’s mother looking sternly at me through her spectacles. ‘Be very careful when your mother is not with you. And never talk to strangers!’
I looked from Satish’s mother to the woman who had given me tea and sweets, and then back at Satish’s mother.
‘I like strangers,’ I said.
Satish’s mother definitely staggered a little, as obviously she was not used to being contradicted by small boys. ‘There you are, you see! If you don’t watch over them all the time, they’ll walk straight into trouble. Always listen to what your mother tells you,’ she said, wagging a fat little finger at me. ‘And never, never talk to strangers.’
I glared resentfully at her, and moved closer to the woman who had befriended me. Satish was standing behind his mother, grinning at me, and delighting in my clash with his mother. Apparently he was on my side.
The station bell clanged, and the people who had till now been squatting resignedly on the platform began bustling about.
‘Here it comes,’ shouted Satish, as the engine whistle shrieked and the front lights played over the rails.
The train moved slowly into the station, the engine hissing and sending out waves of steam. As it came to a stop, Satish jumped on the footboard of a lighted compartment and shouted, ‘Come on, Arun, this one’s empty!’ and I picked up my suitcase and made a dash for the open door.
We placed ourselves at the open windows, and the two women stood outside on the platform, talking up to us. Satish’s mother did most of the talking.
‘Now don’t jump on and off moving trains, as you did just now,’ she said. ‘And don’t stick your heads out of the windows, and don’t eat any rubbish on the way.’ She allowed me to share the benefit of her advice, as she probably didn’t think my ‘mother’ a very capable person. She handed Satish a bag of fruit, a cricket bat and a big box of chocolates, and told him to share the food with me. Then she stood back from the window to watch how my ‘mother’ behaved.
I was smarting under the patronizing tone of Satish’s mother, who obviously thought mine a very poor family; and I did not intend giving the other woman away. I let her take my hand in hers, but I could think of nothing to say. I was conscious of Satish’s mother staring at us with hard, beady eyes, and I found myself hating her with a firm, unreasoning hate. The guard walked up the platform, blowing his whistle for the train to leave. I looked straight into the eyes of the woman who held my hand, and she smiled in a gentle, understanding way. I leaned out of the window then, and put my lips to her cheek, and kissed her.
The carriage jolted forward, and she drew her hand away.
‘Goodbye, mother!’ said Satish, as the train began to move slowly out of the station. Satish and his mother waved to each other.
‘Goodbye,’ I said to the other woman, ‘goodbye—mother . . . .
I didn’t wave or shout, but sat still in front of the window, gazing at the woman on the platform. Satish’s mother was talking to her, but she didn’t appear to be listening; she was looking at me as the train took me away. She stood there on the busy platform, a pale sweet woman in white, and I watched her until she was lost in the milling crowd.
The Intimate Demon*
Manoj Das
SHE WAS ASLEEP, MY LITTLE cherub, after a solemn understanding with me that a tiny real monkey must be procured for her as soon as possible, since she had for the first time in her life, ventured out to live without her mother. As I remembered the watchman of my bungalow rearing such a creature of a gentle, pacific breed, I happily consented to comply with her demand. The compensation she wanted for missing her mother for a week seemed reasonable.
The blue bulb that beamed anaemically dim in the solitude of my coupé and the moonlight that flowed in occasionally through the window, had gathered around my sleeping daughter the azure enchantment of the faery isles. I gazed at her and I gazed at the moon. I didn’t have to dream as dreams seemed to have encircled me. I could retire to the upper berth, but did not, and relished the fear that she might fall down and it was necessary for me to keep sitting beside her.
The train was passing through mofussil stations, one after another, picking up passengers in ones and twos, breaking the gurgling din with interludes of rustic hullabaloo.
Thus had the hours of a midsummer’s night a rhythmic passage until we reached what was only an apology for a station with hardly a roof over its officer’s head. The purpose of a waiting-room was duly served by bushy trees all around the tin-shed. But from this most unsuspected setting emerged a big crowd which shook up the train as it jostled to board it in the twinkle of an eye. There were blows against my door too. But soon the train resumed movement and I could faintly see the rump of the crowd, still sufficient for half a train, looking blankly at the vanishing giant it had failed to tame.
Once more I carefully arranged the little pillow by my daughter’s side and prepared to climb to my upper berth. But a turn of the train revealed a shadow by the window. As I carefully observed through the glass, a big man, big even in his beard, was discovered quietly hanging on. I was disgusted and told myself that he deserved to be left where he was. But I suspected that the fellow was dozing! If I had a slight misgiving in regard to his character, it vanished. A thief could not afford to doze.
I lifted the window glass and drew his attention. In harmony with the jolly moon, a broad smile bloomed on his face. ‘I am a very humble man, sir,’ he said. ‘You are brave indeed, sir, to hang on like that and manage a nap too,’ I responded, opening the door and waving him in.
He entered after some polite hesitation and sat down on the floor. He informed me of some big festival, the cause of the rush at the last station. People who had crossed the river to be at the festival were obliged, on their return journey, to travel by train up to the next station as the river had suddenly been in spate and the ferry boat had got defunct.
‘This is first class. I am sure, you have only a third class ticket. But you can be here till your destination,’ I said with a touch of compassion.
The stranger introduced himself as a perpetual wanderer with all his worldly belongings under his arm and assured me that he had neither any ticket nor any destination.
I gave up the idea of going to sleep. But the monotony of the chugging train lulled me for a while.
A shrill sound stabbed my repose. I sat bolt upright and tried to locate the source of the noise. My daughter was still asleep. It was the old man. He had started playing a flute.
What he did was by no means diabolical. But, I do not know why, I was seized by a fury. He appeared to me the very symbol of fiendishness and ingratitude. Even though I knew that I should not mind the sound, the thought that the sleep I had secured for my daughter after hours of effort meant so little to the intruder made me burst out, ‘Stop!’
He looked at me rather bewildered and, without a word, put the flute back in his worn-out haversack and stood up with some effort. The train had stopped at another station. He opened the door and, silently saluting me, got down.
As I closed the door and turned back, I was unhappy to see my daughter awake, in the process of sitting up. I switched on the main
light.
‘Why did you get up, my child?’ I murmured. She remained silent for a moment and then, grabbing me as I sat down by her side, said softly, ‘I was dreaming such a beautiful dream, Papa!’
‘Good. What was it about?’
She was already in tears. ‘I was wandering in a charming garden, full of flowers and fairies. Among them was a wonderful child. He played his flute to me. But then, you know . . . .’
Her voice choked. I wiped tears off her cheeks. ‘But then, what happened?’ I asked.
She recovered and continued, ‘Suddenly someone thundered at him and rushed upon him. It was a big, bad demon. His music stopped. All around there were clouds. I do not know what happened after.’
I looked through the window. The sleeping meadows were flooded with moonlight. But I was waking up to darkness and a demon lurking—somewhere inside.
A Stranded Railroad Car
Intizar Husain
‘ALL OF THIS, BROTHER, MEANS nothing. To tell you the truth, travel isn’t enjoyable any more.’
Bundu Miyan’s story was heard with great interest. But Shujat Ali somehow didn’t care for this concluding remark and said, ‘Well now, I wouldn’t go that far. Travel must have meant quite a lot to our elders. Why else would they have stirred out of doors? They weren’t crazies. You are too young and inexperienced to jump to conclusions. All you had was a single trip, which ended somewhat badly for you. And right away you decide there’s no fun and adventure in travel. As I look at it, you never took a journey—I mean a real travel, which is something else again. Well, Mirza Sahib, what do you think?’
Mirza Sahib gently removed the spout of the hookah from his lips, opened his drowsy eyes, cleared his throat, and said, ‘Shujat Ali, you shouldn’t argue with these modern boys. What do these kids know about travelling! Especially the train—it’s taken all enjoyment out of journeying. You blink your eye and you’ve arrived at your destination. But there was a time when kingdoms fell and governments toppled by the time you reached where you were going, and the toddlers you’d left crawling naked on all fours—you returned to find them fathers worrying their heads over a suitable match for their marriageable daughters.’
The idea of political upheavals caught Bundu Miyan’s fancy. He couldn’t resist remarking, ‘Mirza Sahib, even entire governments topple down today in less time than it takes to blink an eye. You go to the booking counter, purchase your ticket, hop on the train, and at the very next stop you can already hear, the hawker yelling about a coup somewhere.’
‘Oh, yes, just a coup. Nothing more and nothing less,’ Mirza Sahib was quick to remark. ‘But in the past,’ he continued, ‘a change of government invariably meant a change of coinage too. New monarch, new coins. That was a real journey, one hell of a journey. One went on travelling hundreds and hundreds of miles, back and forth, with the destination nowhere in sight and all traces of a starting point irretrievably obscured. Each journey seemed to be the last. Just imagine the hazards attending a journey in the past: the fear of tigers, of snake-bites, of highwaymen and, yes, of ghosts too. You had neither clocks nor electricity in those days. You travelled by the dim, starlit sky overhead and the burning torches below. A torch suddenly blown out by the wind and your heart dropped between your feet; a meteor shot in the sky leaving behind a blazing trail, and your heart pounded fitfully, and you prayed, ‘Lord God! take care of us and don’t let us wayfarers down!’ And now—the night’s spent before you know it. Back then, though, it took ages to pass a single night in travel; a night then meant the span of a century.’
Mirza Sahib was left speechless. So were Bundu Miyan and Manzur Husain. The mouthpiece of the hookah froze between Shujat Ali’s lips; only the pipe’s gurgle, rising in an incessant monotone, fell gently upon the darkening portico where it blended with the tranquil silence of nightfall.
Mirza Sahib resumed his chatter in a manner that seemed to suggest he had strayed too far and was now back to the point. ‘No horse-drawn carts, no journey. Today the train is in fashion. I just don’t feel like travelling any more. By God, only one journey is left now. But come to think of it, who needs a carriage for that one? Off I shall go when my time’s come . . .’ he sighed and lapsed into silence.
The spout was still stuck as before under Shujat Ali’s grey moustache, and the gurgling went on as a matter of course. Then Sharfu, the servant, emerged from the house, holding a lantern. The darkening portico lit up dimly and there was a slight stir. Sharfu pulled up a stool near the chairs, set the lantern upon it, and raised the wick a little. Shujat Ali gently passed the spout to Mirza Sahib, who tried a puff or two, then quickly let go of it, peering at the chillum—the clay bowl atop the hookah. It’s gone cold,’ he murmured. Then raising his voice he called the servant, ‘Sharfu! Put some fresh tobacco in. A few burning coals too.’
Shujat Ali pushed his chair back for no apparent reason. He yawned languidly, passed his palms over his wrinkled cheeks, and spoke in a measured tone, ‘You could not be more right, Mirza Sahib. Travelling really has changed a lot these days. But . . . but a journey, after all, is a journey, whether you travel by horse-cart or by train.’
‘But even in a train journey . . .’ Mirza Sahib wanted to say something, God knows what, but Shujat Ali grabbed the thread instead and went on, ‘Yes, even in a train journey you witness the most bizarre things and encounter strange sorts of people . . . .’
‘. . . and you get to see a face or two which, in its infinite charm, becomes etched on your heart forever; it stays with you and you are never quite able to forget it,’ said Manzur Husain, suddenly remembering a long-forgotten incident. And with this, he felt the overwhelming urge to narrate it. And why not, if Bundu Miyan could tell such a long yarn. The incident had occurred an eternity ago, and yet how was it, Manzur Husain wondered, that he hadn’t told a soul about it? Suppose he told them—what could he possibly lose? At his age who would suspect him of anything unseemly or foul?
Manzur Husain was about to speak when Bundu Miyan burst out, ‘Look at him. He fancies meeting charming faces. God, I never could believe there are people who travel looking just for romances!’
‘Miyan, you’ve got it all wrong,’ Shujat Ali interrupted. ‘A train is a whole city in miniature. Hundreds of people get in or get off at every stop. You are bound to rub shoulders with all sorts of people in the crowd.’
‘If you rub shoulders, inevitably you may meet the eyes too. Listen, I would like to tell you something,’ Manzur Husain was at it at last. Bundu Miyan’s offensive attitude had warmed him up.
But it was Shujat Ali who cut him short this time. ‘Eyes meeting eyes—what’s so unusual about that? You could be at home and still exchange glances with the girl in the balcony across the street. Why set out on a journey when you could accomplish as much right here at home? Well, stunning things happen while travelling. At times, the very history of a country takes on a new turn.’ Shujat Ali had warmed up now. ‘Well, Mirza Sahib,’ he said, ‘you would scarcely remember the time when the railway first came here. We were mere kids then, weren’t we? My late father used to tell us about it.’
Manzur Husain waited for Shujat Ali to finish recounting his tale so that he might begin his. But the latter seemed bent on spinning a fresh and longer yarn. In time Manzur Husain’s restiveness began to lessen of its own accord. He persuaded himself in different ways: that it ill-behoved a middle-aged man like himself to cackle about such matters, that he doesn’t seem to remember the whole story anyway, that some links were missing, that it was like an incoherent dream, neither fully remembered, nor totally forgotten. The dream appeared very hazy to begin with, except for a single bright spot which by the minute grew brighter still. It was a tawny face—full of charm. The spot of light began to expand and illuminated a foggy corner of his memory: a bunch of weary passengers who sat half-awake, half-asleep inside a dimly-lit waiting-room. He was himself ensconced in a chair, drowsing. Then he dozed off, but the clatter of wheels outside woke him up. The
train was late, yet he somehow felt it had steamed in. He darted out to make sure, and found a freight train chugging along. He remained on the platform a while, pacing up and down, and then returned to the waiting-room, where from time to time he furtively glanced at the bench opposite him. It was occupied by a heavy, squat man with salt-and-pepper hair clad in a white dhoti and a long coat that came all the way to his knees, and a slim young woman of a delightfully tawny complexion huddled beside him. She too was drowsing. Whenever her onion-coloured sari slipped off her head, her long, luxuriant, jet-black hair flashed in the light and a pair of delicate, pale earrings, dangling from her lobes, emitted sparks . . . .
Shujat Ali was narrating his story with gusto: ‘Both Hindus and Muslims kicked up quite a fuss. They said their holy saints were buried here, so no railroad tracks were going to be laid here. But the British were in no mood for such pious insanities. Why would they be? They were the rulers. And they were drunk with power. The railroad track was laid down anyway. It was then that my father was obliged to take a trip to Delhi,’ Shujat Ali paused for a moment. In a tone swelling with pride, he continued, ‘My father was the first in this city to ride the train. Even the big shots hadn’t seen a train until then—why, a lot of them hadn’t even heard of it . . . .’
Manzur Husain was not listening to the words, but only to the voice of the narrator; staring hard at him, desperately hoping for him to stop at some point. Gradually the narrator’s face grew hazy and his voice dimmed. The bright spot became exceedingly luminous . . . those illuminated corners and crannies, flashing bright lines . . . . It was a long railroad track along one side of which ran an interminable line of lampposts quietly shedding the gentle glow of their light bulbs. The bright cone of light around a lamppost, the darkness beyond it, the black iron tracks vanishing into the distance. He had unrolled his bed on an upper berth; on the lower berths some passengers were comfortably stretched out and sleeping; others were uncomfortably stuffed in narrow spaces and simply drowsing, their heads resting against windows. From time to time somebody would wake up, turn over on his side, glance casually at the sleeping passengers, and doze off again. Many stations passed by; many times the train slowed down and came to a halt. The dark car suddenly lit up, followed by a din as the passengers jostled to climb aboard or jump down and peddlers barged in to sell their wares. The whistle, the jerk, and once again the incessant clatter of wheels. As the train picked up speed, the same familiar feeling assaulted him: as if the car he was riding in had come unhitched and stood stranded in the middle of nowhere while the rest of the train, whistling and clattering, had steamed far away. Sometimes he felt as if the train had started running backwards, pulling time along with it, and that the night would never end. Half the span of a century had passed and the other half was yet to pass; that the train wasn’t really going forward—it was merely moving in circles, spinning as it were, on a pivot; that when it stopped it seemed it would remain standing all night long, and when it moved, it seemed like it would go on racing with the night, competing with it but never quite outwitting it. And then the train would slow down again, as if its wheels had become too tired to turn any more; the same flood of light in the dark car; the din of motley passengers, porters, peddlers; people suddenly waking from their sleep and inquiring, ‘Is this a junction?’—a semi-articulate expression sinking into the depths of sleep. ‘No, it’s only some small station’; whistles, more whistles; the familiar jerk; the same heavy clatter of lazy wheels. He looked at his watch. ‘Only one-thirty!’ he was surprised. Many times he had dozed off and many times been awakened; still the night seemed to have barely waned—on the contrary, it seemed to have become even longer. He got up wearily, climbed down from his berth and made for the toilet. On the lower berth, the squat man in the white, flowing dhoti and long coat had dozed off, and was now snoring away heavily. The young woman beside him with the delightful tawny complexion, with sleep strung in her eyes, her head propped up against the window, looked inebriated. A sudden gust of wind blew her dark, lustrous curls and scattered them all over her face. The edge of her sari too had slipped off her chest, revealing the contours of a pair of beautifully firm, round breasts. The sheer beauty of her blossoming youth enthralled him for a moment or two. It was absolutely quiet inside the compartment; the passengers were asleep, and the only sound came from the incessant clatter of wheels. It was so hot inside that the man sitting in the opposite corner had removed even his undershirt. Suddenly he got up and blurted out, ‘The black river’s just ahead.’ With an ever-increasing clatter of wheels the train entered a tunnel. He stood where he was as the train emerged from one darkness and plunged into another. It grew pitch dark inside the car . . his thoughts abruptly derailed.