Train to Delhi

by Shiv Kumar Kumar

  ‘Sorry, Mr Mehta,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t see you earlier. I hope you had no trouble.’

  ‘No, Mr Kelkar.’

  When the passengers saw the police officer talking so deferentially to Gautam, they felt awed.

  The train took about two hours to reach Amritsar. Here, as directed by William Thornton, the local superintendent of police escorted Gautam’s party to the international border. By the time they got there, it was already morning, with the sun slowly rising above the horizon.

  Gautam warmly thanked Kelkar for all his help.

  ‘Will you, please, also convey my gratitude to the commissioner?’ said Gautam.

  ‘I will,’ he said, and jeeped away.

  It was an unending ant line of Muslim migrants, trudging close upon each other’s heels. Some of them were carrying only a handbag or a small suitcase, their sole movable property to be carried across the border. Famished and wrinkled faces stared blankly into space. Occasionally, a child whimpered for food or drink, only to be shouted down by his or her parents. As the line moved forward, at a snail’s pace, some started up a conversation with the others, sharing memories of what they were leaving behind—their ancestral homes, their friends and their relatives. They were not certain what awaited them in the new country. It was a journey into the unknown.

  At the end of the line was the immigration checkpost, which looked like a customs barrier. It had been set up on the southern edge of a bamboo bridge, across a river which drove a discreet wedge between the outskirts of Amritsar and Mumtazpur (a small village on the Pakistani side).

  As Salma and her mother inched forward, Haseena and Gautam walked alongside, nobody saying anything. They heard only the buzzing of their thoughts, like bats flapping their scaly wings in the dark.

  The die had been cast and there was no going back.

  The Pakistani immigration officer scrutinized the papers of Begum Rahim and Salma very closely; he then ushered them across the border, smiling like St. Peter at the gates of heaven.

  But before Haseena’s mother took Salma across the bridge, she turned back, leaning tearfully over the bamboo railing.

  ‘God willing, we’ll meet again,’ she cried out, ‘Inshallah.’

  ‘Inshallah!’ Gautam responded.

  Haseena stood mute. Tears welled up in her eyes and her lips and hands quivered. Then she waved to her mother and sister.

  Another cry wafted across the bridge:

  ‘Khuda Hafiz! God be with you!’

  ‘Khuda Hafiz!’

  Gautam and Haseena stood on the southern bank of the river, waving to two shadowy figures, gradually fading into the crowd on the other side. Then they were gone, as though sucked into some whirlpool.

  Gautam took Haseena’s hand gently into his right palm, looking deep into her eyes.

  ‘I love you,’ he breathed.

  ‘I love you too,’ Haseena’s voice was a mere whisper; then dovetailing her fingers into his, she mumbled: ‘Now, call me Haseena Mehta.’

  ‘No, my love,’ he said. ‘Not Haseena Mehta.’ Then, carried on the crest of some powerful emotion: ‘Just Haseena Gautam—our first names only … Yes, we’ll start a new race—sans caste, sans religion, sans nationality.’

  Their handclasp deepened into a warm pressure; a current flowed from one body to the other.

  As Haseena leaned her head against his shoulder, he caressed her hair. Then, looking at both sides of the river, he saw the same chequered fields of maize. He wondered if the long drooping ears of their stems also heard the mute cries of the displaced, who walked across the bridge every day.

  The sky was now covered with mountains of clouds—white, inky blue and grey. They assumed all sorts of fantastic shapes—of giant dinosaurs, their long necks craning forward, of the skeletal remains of some primordial mammals, of an army of soldiers on the rout. Ceaselessly, they sailed across the bridge, from India to Pakistan, casting fugitive reflections in the tawny waters of the river.

  Suddenly, a flock of birds shot into the sky, and began to circle joyously over the maize fields on either side, as though scornful of the happenings on the earth below. Their spangled wings, poised securely against the wind, glimmered in the morning sun. Their puny belly tanks charged with some inexhaustible fuel, they flew round and round, up and down—and warbled.

  Acknowledgements

  I am grateful to Amitendu Bhattacharya, my young friend, who has helped me with proofreading and editing.

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  Shiv K. Kumar has donned many hats and lived many lives: poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, translator, academic and critic. He was born in Lahore, where he received his school and college education. He obtained his doctorate in English Literature from the University of Cambridge. Prof. Kumar has published thirteen volumes of poetry, five novels, two collections of short stories and a play. His poems have appeared in several renowned newspapers and journals like the New York Times, Poetry Review (London), Western Humanities Review, among others—and been broadcast on the BBC. In 1978, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (London). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987 for his collection of poems Trapfalls in the Sky. In 2001, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature.