I tired of his ramblings and tried to get some sleep. I had hardly dozed off when I smelt liquor near my face. He put his hands around my neck and, pulling me up, tried to sweet talk me into moving over. I was terrified. I knew what he was up to and, despite my physical disadvantage, managed to push him away. It was late at night. The train pulled into a station. I rushed for the door and stepped out onto the platform. The place was surging with people; it seems that every rail station in India, no matter the time of day or night, is a hive of activity. I walked along and spotted two military policemen, both Indian. I spoke in Hindi and told them of my problem. They led me to the station-master, a slightly built Anglo–Indian, and relayed my story. Together we returned to my carriage and the station-master began to question my European companion. He was well and truly under the influence of alcohol and became aggressive. The two military policemen then dragged him from the carriage and led him to the station-master’s office.
While I waited in the carriage one of the policemen approached. ‘Sir, you have no need to worry any further. We will take care of the matter. We are holding the man in custody and he will be shipped out on another train.’
He went on to tell me about the problems they had experienced with drunken white men. Relations between Britain and India were turning sour and Indian Congress leaders who had been agitating for home rule had been imprisoned. I had the impression that this military policeman, too, was keen to see the British out.
The train moved on and I had just fallen asleep when I was awakened to a banging on the door, and confronted by a bearer with my morning breakfast. I had expected a visit from the lady with whom I had begun the journey, but I did not see her until the train pulled into a station for lunch. She inquired after my travelling companion and I told her the whole story. She turned white and looked agitated.
‘I’m dreadfully sorry for having left you with him,’ she said, and hurried me back to our carriage. She could not have been more pleasant.
‘May I ask whether you intend to report the matter to the authorities at Calcutta?’
‘No. As far as I am concerned the episode will be forgotten. Actually, I did not even give the officers my name.’
She was quite overcome with relief. Happy that I would keep my mouth shut, she returned to her lover, saying she would rejoin me later. I was alone again and enjoyed the peace – a kind of joy in solitude.
We arrived at Soaldah station in Calcutta. My escort was met by friends, said her goodbyes and hurried away. I stood around for a while with my belongings and viewed the scene in awe. I could hardly appreciate the vastness of the building and was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people milling around. It was chaotic – soldiers in transit, people rushing about shouting at one another, women in colourful saris and naked children begging with hands outstretched. I had very little money and the prospect of spending the night on the platform with beggars was rapidly becoming a real possibility. Yet I did not feel threatened; in fact, I felt at home, among friends. I was reminded of my mother’s words back in the jungle, ‘You will always be cared for.’
There was nobody to meet me. I waited for a while, then decided I had better fend for myself. I found an office marked ‘Registration of Refugees’. The Indian official and I went through a mountain of papers before we set about filling in any forms. I was restless and still physically weak but he wanted to write down every detail of my background. Nobody else seemed in a hurry to be processed and no hostility was apparent among the crowds waiting for instructions.
I was taken to a refugee camp somewhere in the suburbs and billeted in an old building. The place was primitive and the outdoor toilets consisted of a hole in the ground. One day, when using the toilet, I heard the cry of a child in another cubicle. He had fallen into the pit and was standing up to his knees in human excrement. I hauled him out and we went to the communal tap and scrubbed ourselves clean. Not long afterwards, I was called to the front office and introduced to a very apologetic European couple.
‘We are so sorry we did not meet you at the station. We were wrongly informed about the train from Assam. Are you all right?’
Mr and Mrs Smee were an elderly couple who belonged to the same church group as my father. Through their web of connections they had heard that a child of the flock had survived the trek out of Burma.
‘It is our Christian duty to take care of you, Colin, until peace is restored and you can join your father. We have been informed that he is presently in Abadan, in Persia.’
I accepted this news without asking them anything further. I had not really imagined that he would still be in Calcutta after all this time.
They were a kind and gentle couple who had retired to Calcutta after years of missionary work in the field on the subcontinent. They had no children and were very formal in their ways.
We drove through the industrial suburbs, through teeming crowds, and entered a leafy suburb close to the heart of the great city. They did not miss any opportunity of slipping a bit of Christian teaching into our conversation. In the hot car they had a captive audience. I took it in my stride; if there was one thing I had learned from our family visits to the Buddhist monastery in Burma, it was that we should practise tolerance of everybody’s religious views.
They warned me of the traps and pitfalls of the devil’s path. ‘Seek guidance from above daily, Colin. Remember we are living among hordes of disbelievers.’
I had heard it all before.
We arrived at the house. It was set back from the street, a large colonial building which, though in need of refurbishment, was nonetheless impressive.
The garden, too, needed attention. It must have been a grand home during the heyday of the British Raj. I was shown my room and given the schedule of daily activities. My mind flashed back to boarding school in Rangoon. I accepted the house rules but kept alive the hope that the war would end soon and I would be on my way back to Burma in search of my mother.
I fell into the routine with the elderly couple: meals on cue, quiet moments during the heat of the day, Bible reading at nights and off to bed with prayers of thanks for the good day passed. Sundays were days of rest and quietness. The church was not far from their home.
Soon it was six months since I had lain, a bony body, in the military hospital at Tinsukia, in Assam. I put on weight. I was well looked after, but the nagging feeling that I was a ‘cared’ child of Christian missionaries disturbed me. Was I an object of their good works? A banker in their quest for merits in the afterlife? I was even afraid that they were preparing me for a life in the missionary field.
That the Smees cared for me I have no doubt, but I was not in any condition to feel uplifted by their doomsday preaching. They were blissfully unaware that I had been brought up in a household where freedom of movement and association was encouraged.
One day Mr Smee said, ‘We will be travelling out of town for the day, Colin. You must stay here. Don’t venture outside, in case you become lost in the big city.’
I chuckled to myself. Had I not crossed many miles of unmapped terrain without someone to direct me? Within minutes of their leaving I ventured out of the house in the direction of the street at the end of the garden.
‘I am going out for a little while,’ I told the servant, who had followed me.
The look on his face signalled disapproval, but he did not dare deter me.
I swung open the wide metal gates and stopped to view the movement of humanity, vehicles and animals of one of the world’s most populous cities. I was overawed at the crushing movement of people. There were masses of all ages heading purposefully in every direction. I realised how remote the Smees’ house was from this city of millions. I could have been on another planet. I felt alive breathing in the smell of cooking, human bodies and car and truck exhausts. Tram cars rattled past, skinny black men hauled carts laden with goods. The air was filled with chatter as the people shouted to gain an audience among the throng. It was a revelation and as I stood
on the dirty pavement of fractured concrete, I felt, for the first time since the trek, truly alive.
I was tempted to board a tram car that had stopped to pick up passengers, but realised I had no money for such an adventure. The heat of the day was intense. It was pre-monsoon time once again, and very little breeze stirred the air. Unlike many Asian cities that have a distinctive smell of herbal cooking, Calcutta gave off an odour of decaying garbage. The deep gutters, a signature of monsoonal cities, overflowed with all manner of refuse accumulated since the previous monsoon. I was not put off by the smell and squalor. This was Calcutta, and the freedom I experienced that day was enough to make me fall in love with the dingiest of all cities.
I returned reluctantly to the quiet of the Smee compound and paused in the shade of the large trees that lined the driveway.
At dinner I decided I had better admit to my adventure before the Smees found out.
‘Today, while you were out, I went for a walk in the street,’ I said casually.
My elderly caretakers looked at one another in disapproval.
‘It was fascinating! I would love to spend more time in the city,’
I ploughed on.
‘Colin, you are not yet ready to face the heathen frontier. You must be more circumspect. If you ever feel the urge to venture out again, you must be accompanied by a chaperone.’
‘I understand,’ I said, but I did not feel the least bit repentant. Try as they might, these two well-meaning people were not equipped to care for somebody of my age. We were poles apart and I became desperately unhappy. I went off my food and neglected taking the prescribed medication. Malaria hit me again and the Smees took me to the Calcutta Infirmary where a kind Indian doctor examined me.
He was a jolly fellow and exclaimed, ‘My God! You’re like a scarecrow! We shall have to fatten you up.’
He added that I was all out of proportion.
‘At your height, you should be tipping the scales at ten stone and not five and a bit. But never you fear. I will have you as fat as a babu [fat Indian merchant] before you leave us.’
The activity in the hospital and the smiling faces of staff and visitors gave me a lift. I enjoyed talking to the cleaners, the other patients and their relatives and friends in Hindustani. It was like old times when I was most at home playing and fighting with the children of our servants. The Smees visited frequently and I was conscious of their concern. Because my diet at the hospital had been substantially changed from their European fare, my weight climbed at a tremendous pace.
Perhaps the doctor was true to his word and may yet have me tipping the scales at the level of a fat, contented Indian merchant.
I was content with my lot there and spent a lot of time observing the masses moving about in the street below. They moved briskly, oblivious to the cruel heat. Back in the wards the ceiling fans were never switched off. Between the cycles of high fever I returned to normal and took myself to the verandah to watch the spectacle, yearning to be part of the scene. I began to feel the world was leaving me behind. I reflected on the past and planned my future. But making plans without an inkling of what lay ahead was terribly demoralising. The thought of returning to Burma constantly crossed my mind, but how and where to start were questions that tormented me.
On the other hand, I was enjoying my stay in hospital. Indian hospitals are vast institutions. I could almost trick myself into believing I was in a village full of people, such was the atmosphere. When I left hospital after a week or so, it was with a tinge of sadness.
‘I’m going to miss all the characters,’ I told the doctor when he gave me my last examination.
He laughed.
‘The whole world is waiting for you and you are certainly in a much better shape now than when you came in.’
But the hospital had been a refuge. I would miss the people, not to mention the smell of antiseptics mixed with the cookhouse aromas of spices and the inescapable pall of bedi [Indian cigarette] smoke.
The Smees drove me home on a Sunday and broke the journey with a visit to the local church. The fiery sermon was preached by a red-headed elder whose theme was the wages of sin. He repeatedly exhorted the congregation to repent.
‘Seek God’s forgiveness before you are all called before the throne on high!’
Even at my young age I could not believe that any intelligent people would willingly sit and listen to someone telling them they were sinners.
Chapter 15
Getting Away
Back at the Smees’ home I became restless. They recognised this and decided, without consulting me, that they must do something about it. One night they called me.
‘Colin, I must admit that your few months with us have been somewhat different from what we had envisaged,’ Mr Smee said. ‘We have come to accept that it is not a simple task for two people in their twilight years to understand the feelings of a young lad.’
Mrs Smee nodded.
‘I have been in touch with a fellow Christian in the South of India who has a young family,’ Mr Smee went on. ‘The time has come for you to be brought up with children of your own age. You will attend the same school as the two youngest Beer children. The arrangements are made. You will be leaving us in two days’ time. We will always keep you in our prayers.’
I displayed qualified enthusiasm. I was torn. I yearned to get away, and wanted to be with other youngsters, although I would have baulked at the idea of boarding school. The thought of joining a family was appealing, but I could not be certain that the move to another strange household was the right one. How I wished I was physically fit. I could have walked away and headed back into Burma. With bags packed, a few words of advice and a good dose of spiritual bidding, I was on my way to the great South land. The train journey to Bangalore would take several days, this being war-time, and I was to stop off at Madras along the way. Mr Smee drove me to Howrah Station on the Western bank of the Hoogly River. It was late afternoon and all pedestrian traffic seemed to be headed to this wide muddy stretch of water.
The rivers I had crossed during the trek out of Burma had been relatively clear, but the Hoogly looked like an outpouring of melting milk chocolate. My knowledge of geography told me that the river was a tributary of the mighty Ganges. This stretch of water must have moved along many hundreds of miles through the most populous regions in India. Along the way it had probably served as a huge sewer; that would account for its appearance. At the station forecourt we were set upon by a horde of scrambling porters all eager to carry my worldly possessions tucked away in a fibre suitcase.
Howrah was no different from any other stations in India, serving not only as people movers, but also as centres for hawkers, pimps, thieves and families. They ate, slept and defecated in the concrete structures amid the odour of rubbish, cooking and the ever-pungent coke-fired engines. The walk to my compartment was an obstacle course and the din from hissing, steaming engines and the clanging of goods was deafening. I entered my compartment, a four-berth carriage, and smiled at my fellow travellers. They were Indians who appeared to be well-educated government employees. I soon settled in and long before the train set off we were chatting like long-lost friends.
Of all Britain’s achievements as colonial masters, the most notable must surely be the construction of a remarkably fine rail system. It is cheap and has the capacity to move many millions of Indians around the sub-continent. Our first-class sleeper was decked out in the finest leather and woodwork. Since the tracks were wide, at 5 feet 6 inches, the compartments were very roomy.
I was eagerly awaiting the train’s departure, and looked forward to seeing the countryside before darkness settled in. My three travelling companions focused on me. I told them briefly about my trek out of Burma, without much detail, and perhaps this window into my tragic past swung their kindly attention to me. At every stop, and there were many, they offered me all manner of Indian snacks and drinks. As is usual on the Indian railway, the morning began with chota hazari [light b
reakfast] delivered to the compartment.
I was excited. I had learnt about the Coromandel Coast in my geography lessons in Burma, and now I was to experience the journey. I was in a good frame of mind to absorb every detail of the two- to three-day trip south. The journey begins in Bengali country, shuffles through Telugu country and terminates in Tamil country. It is a long ride through three distinct ethnic boundaries, with a view of three very different cultures. Even the smells at the various stops were different; so was the food on sale at the stations along the way and the costumes of the people too. I enjoyed every moment of being part of a changing scene. I noted the little things that made the people of this country so different and interesting. To add to the enjoyment, my three companions were also of different backgrounds.
The politics of the day came into our conversation.
‘It is very true that we have done well under British rule,’ said one of the men, and the others agreed.
‘However,’ he went on, ‘there is some doubt about what will happen when India finally gets its independence.’
‘The war years have been tough,’ said another. ‘Food has become scarce and the unusually heavy influx of people escaping from the eastern states has confused the administration.’
One of the passengers was a Muslim and although the atmosphere in the cities was tense between the Hindus and Muslims, my companions seemed quite able to accept one another. They talked about the chances of partition and wondered how it would affect the country. The subject turned to the imminent famine in Bengal.
‘The wealthy traders are to blame for what could become a major catastrophe.’
‘Yes, it is a terrible situation which could backfire badly.’
Their predictions came true some months later. The Bengal famine took the lives of a million or more people. The news of the war was a priority, naturally, and hence not much was written about the disaster.
It was a fairy-tale journey. The gentlemen spoiled me. During the day, when there was so much to see, they took a nap and let me soak in the sights. With mountains on our right, we tracked south. Occasionally we caught a glimpse of the Bay of Bengal on the left. Villages dotted both sides of the track and mile after mile of cropped fields appeared. I never tired of looking at the green fields which, I knew, had been worked by hand.
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