by Ruskin Bond
‘No sooner had the train reached the bank of the River Jamuna than it ground to a halt, smack in the middle of the jungle,’ Shujat Ali was continuing with his narrative. ‘Midnight! What to do? The times were especially bad. Highwaymen roamed about freely throughout the country. Even in Delhi one dared not go past the banks of the Jamuna without putting one’s life in grave danger. Well, anyway, they thoroughly checked the engine but found nothing wrong with it. Still, it just wouldn’t budge. An endless night, the jungle with its myriad sounds, each more frightening than the next, and no habitation near or far in which to look for shelter—it was some experience. The night came to an end eventually. At the crack of dawn, in the first, hesitant light, people saw a saintly looking grey-bearded man quietly saying his prayers huddled in the corner of one of the cars. Having said his prayers, the hoary old man looked at the people and said, ‘Have the railroad track dug up!’
Bundu Miyan found himself gawking at Shujat Ali. Mirza Sahib, wishing to draw on the hookah, felt unable to raise the spout to his mouth. His hand froze, and his grip around the pipe tightened. Manzur Husain, however, was busy retrieving the missing links in his memory.
After a pause Shujat Ali looked up at Mirza Sahib and resumed, ‘People went and reported this bizarre incident to the British officer. He flew into a rage. But there was little he could do. The train simply wouldn’t budge. He relented. He agreed to have the track dug out—his hands were tied. A whole slew of labourers was called in and the digging got underway. They had barely dug down a few feet when they discovered an underground vault . . . .’ Shujat Ali broke his narrative to look awhile at Mirza Sahib, Bundu Miyan and Manzur Husain, who all sat perfectly motionless, like images cast in stone. He resumed: ‘My father used to tell us how three armed men, mustering all their courage and repeating the name of the Lord, descended into the vault. And what did they see but a magnificent hall. A brand new clay pot of fresh water—filled, as if only moments ago—standing in a corner, its top covered by an upturned silver bowl. Nearby on the floor an aged, saintly figure in white clothes, with a lily-white beard and eyebrows, sat on a mat quietly telling his beads . . . .’
Shujat Ali’s voice seemed to be receding. Manzur Husain’s mind was changing tracks again. A string of irregularly illumined dots whirred round and round before him. The illumined dots magnified themselves into bright, scintillating images of remarkable clarity . . . . The train rushed through the tunnel with piercing noise and reckless speed. The dark water below rose up in gentle waves to kiss the tracks. His lips quivered, his fingers throbbed with sweet warmth. The young woman’s disquietingly lovely face, her warm fleshy body—that bright and sparkling image left a ray in his eyes—a ray which penetrated many dark corners and flooded them with light. Early next morning when he got down from his berth his eyes met with hers for a mere second and then travelled through the window to the comfort of the cool and refreshing dawn outside. Their eyes met one more time, when she and the man in the white dhoti got down to change trains. The other train stood along the platform nearby. Clouds of smoke billowed out from the locomotive, dissipated in the fresh morning air and eventually dissolved. There was a whistle. The stationary wheels hissed a little and then got into motion. The locomotive sent up curls of black smoke. Immediately, there was another whistle, and his train too began to pull out. The two trains ran parallel a little way, then the distance between them widened and they drifted apart, gathering speed. Her train moved farther and faster away. The cars in her train, jammed with passengers, moved past him like images in a movie. Finally, even that car went past him in which her face, despite its tawny complexion, somehow appeared the sharpest, the brightest. Her train merged into the distant woods; only the baggage car trailing behind it remained visible for a while longer; then it too vanished into the lush, green space beyond . . . .
‘When they looked a second time, there was absolutely nobody on the mat.’ That was Shujat Ali still narrating his story.
‘And the saintly figure—where did he go?’ Bundu Miyan asked with surprise.
‘God knows,’ Shujat Ali replied. ‘Only the clay pot still stood in its place, but it was empty.’
‘You mean the water too had vanished?’ Bundu Miyan’s surprise knew no bounds.
‘Yes, it had.’ Shujat Ali’s voice was now a mere whisper. ‘My father used to say that the Sepoy Revolt broke out the very next year; the Jamuna turned into a river of fire, and Delhi was razed to the ground.’
Shujat Ali became silent. Mirza Sahib, too, sat in wordless immobility. Bundu Miyan went on gazing at Shujat Ali. Manzur Husain yawned wearily and pulled the hookah towards himself. A minute later he said, poking into the chillum, ‘It’s cold again.’
Mirza Sahib sighed deeply, ‘Nobody knows the mysteries of God.’ He then yelled, ‘Sharfu, put some tobacco in!’
The dim corners and crevices had now assumed a soft, bright translucence, allowing those random images to coalesce into a coherent scene, perfectly intact, lacking in none of its details. Manzur Husain felt excited. The long-forgotten incident had returned to him as vibrant as reality. He was dying to recount it, the whole of it, to the others, withholding nothing, with brio and magnificence. He repeatedly looked at Mirza Sahib, Bundu Miyan and Shujat Ali, impatiently waiting for the spell created by Shujat Ali to wear off, so that he could get on with his own tale. When the hookah was brought back, he drew a few puffs and passed it on to Shujat Ali, saying, ‘Have a few puffs—it is fresh now.’ Shujat Ali took the pipe and started to smoke.
Manzur Husain began impatiently, ‘Something happened to me too—something truly bizarre.’
An indifferent Shujat Ali kept himself busy smoking, but Bundu Miyan evinced a genuine interest, ‘Oh, what?’
Mirza Sahib’s expression gave nothing away; all the same, his eyes had become riveted to Manzur Husain’s face.
Manzur Husain was suddenly feeling very tense; at the end of his wits. He didn’t know quite where and how to begin. Shujat Ali pushed the hookah away and started to cough. Manzur Husain grabbed the hookah with nervous alacrity and drew impatiently on it a few times.
‘Well?’ Bundu Miyan urged.
‘It happened when I was very young. Now it all seems so very odd.’ Manzur Husain fell into thought again.
By now Shujat Ali, too, had become fully attentive. Manzur Husain took a few more puffs on the hookah and coughed for no reason at all. ‘It happened that . . .’ he faltered. He was about to start again when, unexpectedly, the sight of a number of flickering lanterns, followed by the rising, dull sound of light footfalls, came from the alley up ahead. Manzur Husain looked at the approaching lanterns inquisitively and then asked, ‘Mirza Sahib, who could that . . . ?’ He could not finish his sentence.
In the meantime Sharfu, feeling alarmed, had come out of the house. Mirza Sahib instructed him, ‘Go find out and let us know!’
Sharfu was soon back, panting, ‘Nothing in our lane,’ he informed. ‘These are men from the hucksters’ lane . . . the son of Shammas the huckster . . . .’
‘The son of Shammas the huckster?’ Bundu Miyan was visibly shaken. ‘But I myself saw him minding his shop this morning—he was quite all right then.’
‘Yes, yes. He was quite all right until this afternoon,’ said Sharfu. ‘He had his lunch, then felt some pain in his chest. By the time the doctor arrived . . . .’
‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Mirza Sahib. ‘This cardiac arrest is almost a racket these days. Never heard of the sickness while we were young. Isn’t that right, Shujat Ali?’
Shujat Ali heaved a deep sigh and nodded absentmindedly. Mirza Sahib too drifted off into his own thoughts. Bundu Miyan and Manzur Husain were also silent. Sharfu remained standing, hoping that they would start talking again and allow him the opportunity to provide some more information. But, after a while, feeling disappointed, he decided to go back inside. Then, abruptly, he turned, raised the wick in the flickering lantern and poked at the chillum in the hope of somehow st
irring the silent men. They could not be moved. So Sharfu went inside.
After a long pause Shujat Ali broke the silence, sighing, ‘Well, that’s the way of the world. People are born and people die. There’s no escaping the inevitable. Manzur Husain, you were going to tell us something—weren’t you?’
‘Sure you were,’ Bundu Miyan chimed in, returning from his silence.
Manzur Husain shuddered, pulled himself up to speak, but soon drifted off into his thoughts again. ‘The whole thing is gone off my mind,’ he mumbled. Those luminescent spots in his mind had again plunged into darkness. The railroad car had come unhitched and stood alone in the tracks, stranded in the middle of nowhere, while the rest of the train had steamed away—far, far away.
‘What a pity!’ Mirza Sahib exclaimed, promptly falling back into his reverie.
Shujat Ali pulled the hookah towards himself. He drew on the spout a few times, coughed, then began puffing with some regularity.
Manzur Husain’s mind had gone completely blank. He was still struggling to dredge out of it whatever he could when his son suddenly appeared and announced, ‘Abbaji, dinner is ready.’
Manzur Husain took it as a godsend. He got up, climbed down the few steps of the portico, and hurried off to his home. It had begun to get dark in the alley. The lamppost at the corner had been lit, quietly shedding a cone of light, beyond which was darkness. A blind beggar finding his way in the darkness with his staff, the sound of dim footfalls coming from a casual pedestrian, a door slamming shut somewhere . . . . By the time Manzur Husain reached home the dim spots had assumed a renewed brilliance, and the same oppressive urge to tell his story was nagging at him once again—to rescue that dazzling ray from the darkness and expose it in all its glory to the world. He abruptly turned around and said, ‘Son, you go in. I’ll be along soon.’ He was going back to Mirza Sahib’s portico.
The street had become darker still in the meantime. The neighbourhood children, who had raised such a racket until a little while ago, had all gone home. Only a couple of daredevils still remained. They stood near the bathroom of the mosque where a firelight had been burning in a small niche in the wall. They had scraped enough soot to roll into a few black marbles to play with. The fuel had burned out; merely smouldering embers remained. The soot on the wall was getting harder to scrape. Manzur Husain went past the mosque, entered the side lane, and made for Mirza Sahib’s. He found the chairs on the portico empty, but the hookah and the lantern were still there.
‘Where is Mirza Sahib, Sharfu?’
‘At the mosque—to perform his evening prayer; he’ll be back any minute. Do sit down, please.’
Manzur Husain flopped down, back in his old chair. He sat there for quite a long while and drew a few times on the hookah but it had gone cold.
‘Shall I get some fresh fire and tobacco?’ Sharfu asked.
‘No, never mind. I think I will go home.’
Manzur Husain got up and went home the way he had come.
Barin Bhowmik’s Ailment
Satyajit Ray
MR BARIN BHOWMIK GOT INTO compartment D as instructed by the conductor and placed his suitcase under his seat. He would not need to open it during his journey. But he must keep the other smaller bag somewhere within easy reach. It contained such essentials as a comb, a hair brush, a toothbrush, his shaving kit, a book by James Hadley Chase to read on the way and several other knick-knacks, including throat pills. If the long train journey in a cold, air-conditioned compartment resulted in a sore throat, he would not be able to sing tomorrow. He quickly popped a pill into his mouth and put his bag on the small table before the window.
It was a Delhi-bound vestibule train. There were only about seven minutes left before its departure, and yet there was no sign of the other passengers. Would he be able to travel all the way to Delhi all alone? Could he indeed be so lucky? That would really be the height of luxury. The very idea brought a song to his lips.
He looked out of the window at the crowd on the platform. Two young men were glancing at him occasionally. Clearly, he had been recognized. This was not a new experience. People often recognized him for many were now familiar not just with his voice but also with his appearance. He had to give live performances at least half a dozen times every month. Listen to Barin Bhowmik tonight—he will sing songs written by Nazrul as well as aadhunik. Money and fame—both had come to Barin Bhowmik in full measure.
However, this had happened only over the last five years. Before that he had had to struggle a lot. It was not enough to be a talented singer. He needed a suitable break and proper backing. This came in 1963 when Bhola-da—Bhola Banerjee—invited him to sing in the Puja pandal in Unish Palli. Barin Bhowmik had not looked back since then.
In fact, he was now going to Delhi at the invitation of the Bengal Association to sing at their jubilee celebrations. They were paying for his travel by first class and had promised to make all arrangements for his stay in Delhi. He intended spending a couple of days in Delhi. Then he would go to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri and return to Calcutta a week later. After that it would be time for Puja again and life would become madly hectic.
‘Your order for lunch, sir . . . ?’
The conductor-guard appeared in the doorway.
‘What is available?’
‘You are a non-vegetarian, aren’t you? You could choose between Indian and Western food. If you want Indian, we’ve got . . . .’
Barin placed his order for lunch and had just lit a Three Castles cigarette when another passenger came into his compartment; the same instant, the train began pulling out of the station.
Barin looked at the newcomer. Didn’t he seem vaguely familiar? Barin tried to smile, but his smile vanished quickly as there was no response from the other. Had he made a mistake? Oh, God—how embarrassing! Why did he have to smile like an idiot? A similar thing had happened to him once before. He had thumped a man very hard on the back with a boisterous, ‘Hel-lo, Tridib-da! How are you?’ only to discover he was not Tridib-da at all. The memory of this incident had caused him much discomfort for days afterward. God laid such a lot of traps to embarrass one!
Barin Bhowmik looked at the other man once more. He had kicked off his sandals and was sitting with his legs outstretched, leafing through the pages of the latest IIlustrated Weekly. Again, Barin got the feeling that he had seen him somewhere, and not just for a few minutes. He had spent a long time in this man’s company. But when was it? And where? The man had bushy eyebrows, a thin moustache, shiny hair and a little mole in the middle of his forehead. Yes, this face was certainly familiar. Could he have seen this man when he used to work for Central Telegraph? But surely the whole thing could not have been one-sided? His companion was definitely not showing any sign of recognition.
‘Your order for lunch, sir?’
The conductor-guard had reappeared. He was a portly, rather amiable, gentleman.
‘Well,’ said the newcomer, ‘we’ll worry about lunch later. Could I have a cup of tea first?’
‘Of course.’