The Boatman

by John Burbidge

  One of the pleasures of coming to Calcutta for me had to do with our staff. This mix of Indians and foreigners, including singles, couples and one family with three young children was typical of our other centers, but the mood here was markedly different. It was more relaxed and upbeat, with joking and teasing a standard routine. Squeezed between the landlady’s apartment above and the alleyway right outside the front door, the living and working space was even more cramped than in Bombay, but the genial atmosphere more than compensated for the restrictive conditions. This could be attributed to the directors, Sean and Sandy, the husband and wife duo who set the tone of the place. Sean’s Irish American sardonic humor and Sandy’s bubbly warmth and English charm were an enticing combination. Even when he called her ‘pig face’ in a public meeting, we all knew that this was nothing more than a perverse term of endearment. Along with everyone else, I came in for my fair share of ribbing and soon learned the knack of give and take. Perhaps this was one reason why I tended to let down my guard more when in Calcutta and push the boundaries of my nocturnal explorations.

  This time, however, work absorbed most of my energy and three weeks in Calcutta flew by. I helped our local staff secure commitments for more than 100,000 rupees or $10,000 USD but most of my time was spent visiting Indian companies, convincing them to buy advertising space in the exposition brochure. On my return, my luggage was noticeably heavier than it had been on the outward journey, since it contained a number of lead printing blocks. I was also carrying two large jars of pickles I had bought in the old city market, one of which was for Henry, who had asked that I bring him back one of his favorite delicacies. I made sure I didn’t forget his request, since it could only help improve our increasingly strained relationship. This gesture, coupled with our bestever month of fundraising in Calcutta, made the prospect of returning to Bombay more attractive than usual.

  On the day of my departure, I made a point of arriving at Howrah station an hour and a half ahead of time. Since I had a reserved berth, I decided to head for the station cafeteria for a quick cup of tea and a masala dosa before boarding. When I headed out onto the platform 45 minutes later, the crowd seemed to have grown tenfold. So too had the level of yelling and screaming by impatient passengers, opportunistic porters, and ever-hopeful salesmen. Taking out my ticket, I proceeded to locate my carriage. As usual, the numbers of the carriages were scribbled on the side of the cars in chalk. On some carriages, they had been changed several times, so the result was a smudgy blur. What’s more, the alphabetical numbering of the carriages wasn’t sequential. I found carriages H and J but no I. I looked up at the station clock. Only 25 minutes remained before departure.

  Battling the crowd, I gathered up my luggage and walked the entire length of the train again, sure that I would find my carriage this time. Alas, I didn’t. A quiver of fear ripped through my body. How could it not be there? Did I have a ticket for the wrong day or the wrong train? I was sure neither was the case. I looked again at the clock. Less than 20 minutes to go. If worst came to worst, I would jump onto the nearest carriage and do my ignorant foreigner routine with the first ticket conductor I found. Trying to get near a conductor on the platform would require a substantial athletic feat. Tossing politeness aside, I barreled my way through the crowd surrounding one and shouted, ‘Conductor sahib, please help me. I’ve gone up and down the train twice and I still can’t find my carriage. I don’t have much time left. Where is I-19?’

  With a finely honed bureaucratic nonchalance derived from dealing with thousands of situations like this, the conductor ignored my plea and continued what he was doing. I repeated myself, louder.

  ‘Can’t you see I am busy?’ he retorted. ‘Wait your turn.’

  ‘But conductor sahib, the train is about to leave!’ I protested.

  Not to be dismissed lightly, I thrust my hand in front of him and waved my ticket back and forth. The clock was ticking; my stomach was tightening. Then he suddenly turned towards me and grabbed the ticket from my hand. Glancing at it, he stated bluntly, ‘This is down the other end of the train. You’ll have to hurry.’

  Garnering every ounce of energy I could muster, I grabbed my bags and made a wild dash down the platform. I ran the length of the platform, dodging bodies and animals, tea stands and banana-wallahs. Nearing the end of the platform, I heard the first of two whistles. Then the second whistle blew. It was now or never. This section of the train was unmistakably first class, for which I could not afford a ticket, even if by some rare miracle a seat was still available. First-class berths were much more expensive and usually booked well in advance. Desperate to catch the train, I jumped onto the nearest carriage and dropped my bag just inside the door. When a conductor eventually appeared, we were 40 minutes out of Howrah station. I showed him my ticket and tried to explain my situation. His eyes squinted and his brow furrowed.

  ‘This is not a first-class ticket,’ he exclaimed. ‘Your carriage is far from here. You will have to wait until we reach Jamshedpur and I will have to take you. But you’ll need to be quick because we only stop for a few minutes. We will be arriving in about an hour. Wait here.’

  I plunked down on the floor and contemplated my situation. Nothing made sense. It had been such a good couple of weeks in Calcutta. For once, things were going my way. Surely my luck would continue a bit longer. But India had a unique capacity to raise you up to new heights then knock you down with deflating blows. It was something my logical mind could never fathom and over which I had no control. My life felt like an accordion, one moment being splayed apart and the next being squished together. Despite its excruciating demands, something about this concertinaed lifestyle was strangely energizing. Right now, my body and mind were in overdrive. I tried not to think of anything but the rolling motion of the train as it sped west. I only hoped the worst was over and that things would improve.

  It was nearly 11 pm when the Gitanjali pulled into Jamshedpur station. All I could see was the dimly lit platform against a pitch-black sky. In the distance a dog’s bark broke the silence. As the train came to a halt, the conductor appeared and gestured to me to follow him. Our carriage was beyond the end of the platform, leaving a sizable gap between the bottom step and the ground. The conductor jumped down first and I passed him my luggage before leaping myself. I hit the earth with a thud and almost overbalanced.

  ‘Hurry up!’ he commanded, as he led the way at a brisk trot. I couldn’t believe the train was so long. It seemed to have grown since I had examined it at Howrah station. The first whistle blew and the conductor motioned to me to go faster. With my overweight case, I could barely keep up with him. Right as the second whistle blew, he pointed to a carriage door and motioned me to get up. I glanced up to where the carriage number was meant to be. All I could see was a chalky smudge.

  As I tried to catch my breath, he pushed past me and began checking seat numbers. When he reached number 19, he found another body occupying it. With a thunderous voice, the conductor ordered the man out of the berth and told me to take it. The departing passenger glared at me and muttered something under his breath. What others thought I could only conjecture, but didn’t much care. I was exhausted and only wanted to sleep.

  My berth was a lower one parallel to the direction of the train, next to the door at the end of the carriage. Due to my late arrival, there was no space for my luggage in the overhead racks, so I was forced to put it under my seat. As I did so, an older man from the compartment opposite came over to me.

  ‘You should be careful putting your case so close to the door,’ he said. ‘It would be easy for someone to take it. You can store it with us if you like.’

  I was taken aback by his offer and hesitated for a second or two. Was it genuine or was it a ruse to get his hands on my luggage? My extensive train travel in India had taught me to keep my luggage within sight and hand’s reach at all times. Deciding to err on the side of caution, I thanked the man but said I would prefer to keep it close to me. He looked at me a
skance, shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his compartment. But his advice wasn’t entirely wasted. I stowed the case under the berth at the end farthest from the door. As I did so, I was reminded how heavy it was with its printers’ blocks, jars of pickles, and my beloved shortwave radio among other things. Its weight alone was a disincentive to any light-fingered visitor.

  In spite of all I’d been through in the last several hours—or maybe because of it—it took me a long while to get to sleep. I was conscious of the train stopping several times during the night, and each time I reached down under my berth and touched my case to make sure it was there. But in the early hours of the morning I must have dozed off. Only after Kalyan, the last stop before Bombay, I woke up. I was surprised so many people were moving about the carriage, since usually the slightest noise or movement was enough to awaken me.

  Instinctively, I lowered my hand and waved it around. Nothing was there. I rolled over and looked beneath my berth. There was a gaping space. I wanted to scream out a loud ‘No!’ It couldn’t be true. How was it possible for someone to take my case out from under me without my knowing? Thank goodness I had put my money and passport in my satchel under my pillow.

  While I was still trying to grasp what had happened, the man from the compartment opposite came over and sat down. He was sympathetic to my plight but with an ‘I-told-you-so’ look in his eye. He invited me to join his family for chai and insisted that I put my remaining case with their luggage, even though we were only a short distance from Bombay. At this point, I could take all the kindness I could get.

  As the train snaked its way through the outlying areas of the city, the suffocating heat of the lower elevation engulfed me. Looking out the window, I watched the early morning diorama that accompanies railway lines in India. But unlike on my outward journey several weeks before, none of this human drama was of the least interest to me, not even the occasional glimpse of a temptingly muscular body taking a bucket bath. All I could think of was the loss of my case and how I would break the news to my colleagues. At least they would be sympathetic.

  Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I resolved to do something. As soon as the train pulled into Victoria Terminus, I went straight to the Railway Police and lodged a complaint for stolen property. The duty officer didn’t blink an eyelid as I related my tale of woe. He must have heard thousands of stories like it, especially from naïve foreigners.

  ‘You do one thing,’ he commanded. ‘Fill out this form and sign it.’

  He pushed a yellowing piece of paper in front of me. It looked to be the same form some punctilious British civil servant had designed a couple of centuries before. I knew that filling it out was futile. It was an empty bureaucratic procedure that would end up in a file that over time would be shredded by rats or cockroaches in some moldy storage room. At it created the illusion that I was doing something to address my sorry situation.

  But I was still not ready to face my colleagues. An odd mix of shame and guilt overcame me. I needed time to rehearse my story and compose myself. I headed for the station dining room and ordered my favorite ‘full breakfast’—a hangover from British times that could still be found in some Indian railway stations. Between the imitation cornflakes and greasy fried eggs, I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They began as a trickle but within moments, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn’t remember when I had last done this, if ever. Not letting my emotions show was something I’d become skilled at, even prided myself on. I was embarrassed others would notice but few people were in the room. As I reached down in my pocket and pulled out my handkerchief, I pushed my plate away and let the tears take their course.

  FRIENDS AND FIENDS

  The sense of accomplishment I had experienced when I left Calcutta had been replaced by a confusing mixture of shame, guilt and loss by the time I returned to Bombay.

  I decided to go straight to our office and tell my story, since I was sure it would help to share it with someone.

  ‘Ah, Mr. John is back!’ beamed Manoj. ‘So how was the “Far East”?’

  I cleared my throat as I tried to stick to our old adage, ‘always state the positive before the negative.’

  ‘Well, we had our best month ever. We raised over one lakh rupees,’ I proudly proclaimed.

  ‘Vah. Arrey baap rey!’ exclaimed Manoj.

  Henry looked up, as if he was about to speak.

  ‘But I ran into problems on the way home. I was robbed on the Gitanjali and lost my pilot’s case, with all the advertising blocks I picked up in Calcutta. Not to mention my radio and two jars of pickles.’

  Henry stood up from his chair and walked over to me.

  ‘How many blocks did you lose?’

  ‘Seven or eight, I think.’

  ‘Shit! We were counting on those. You know what that means, don’t you? We’re going to have to get replacements and delay the publication date even further. Damn!’

  I glanced at Manoj. The look of disbelief on his face only reinforced my own shock at Henry’s response. No acknowledgement of our most successful fundraising month ever in Calcutta. No compassion for my personal misfortune. Not even an inquiry about the nature of the mishap. I was tempted to retaliate but couldn’t find the words that would come close to expressing my anger. I turned and stormed out of the room. Grabbing my satchel, I raced downstairs, out the front gate, and down to the corner of Clare Road to one of my favorite cafés. Slumping into a chair, I ordered chai while trying to figure out what to do. That Henry and I had to work together on the same team was bad enough; that we had to sleep in the same room was an anathema. I wasn’t sure I could go on like that much longer. My mind overflowed with vengeful thoughts that demanded to be funneled into a plan of action. After his icy welcome, I was convinced we were headed for an impasse. I didn’t have to wait long to have my intuition confirmed.

  Two weeks after my return, our Bombay staff undertook ‘tribal resettlement.’ This custom was designed to ensure that no individual or family became too attached to their assigned space in our community. Sometimes this involved physically changing the temporary structures we had erectedbut mostly it meant shifting people from one room to another. Although it was inconvenient, tribal resettlement was strangely refreshing in the way that cleaning out a garage or reorganizing file drawers can be.

  When the new housing plan was unveiled, I was greatly relieved to find that Henry and I had been assigned different rooms. Perhaps others were not so oblivious to the growing tension between us, or Henry had pulled some strings of his own. Either way, I was glad not to have to spend another night in the same room as him. There were, however, a couple of differences between our new arrangements. My ‘room’ was a narrow space, separated from the kitchen by a thin curtain and barely wide enough to fit a double bunk with a meter to spare on one side. Since I was away three weeks every month, such cramped quarters didn’t bother me, but it made storage of clothes and other items difficult. Henry’s space was not a lot larger but it contained a small closet and a chest of drawers. Much to my surprise, he offered me the use of one of his drawers.

  However, given our past history, I wrote a short note declining his offer and left it on top of his dresser before I left for an appointment with Manoj. When we returned, we had only just entered the front door when Henry came marching down the corridor towards us. His beady eyes looked straight at me and his face reddened.

  ‘You and I need to talk. Now. Downstairs.’

  I felt like an errant schoolboy being ordered to the headmaster’s office. I followed Henry to the ground floor and out into a corner of the compound.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he demanded, thrusting my note in front of me. ‘I offer to help you out and you insult me like this?’

  ‘One drawer when you have the rest of the dresser is hardly unbounded generosity.’

  ‘You should be grateful for what you can get, instead of turning your nose up at it.’

  ‘I suppose I should be grateful
for losing my luggage as well.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with this.’

  ‘What has this got to do with, Henry?’

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to every night.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘You know as well as I do, and if it doesn’t stop, you’ll find yourself reassigned.’

  Was he really aware of my other life or was he trying to get me to tell him what he wanted to know? Maybe he thought I was chasing women or maybe he couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘gay.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see how I can stop something when I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be stopping.’

  ‘Don’t get smart with me. And I’m not the only one who’s onto you, so you’d better watch out.’

  I looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘Will that be all?’

  He glared back at me but couldn’t find the words to make a suitable response.

  ‘And make sure you get replacements for those advertising blocks before the end of the month.’

  I turned to walk away but couldn’t resist one last swipe.

  ‘It’s nice to know you’re so concerned about my misfortune.’

  * * *

  Henry had thrown down the gauntlet and I had picked it up. As much as it unnerved me to live and work side by side with Henry, I was relieved that the burgeoning bubble of discontent between us had finally burst. After this, Henry seemed to make sure I was out of Bombay as often and for as long as possible. It turned out to be an acceptable solution for me, since gay friends in Bombay had been supplying me with contacts around the country and I couldn’t wait to check them out. Moreover, it meant I could talk to colleagues who might have a little more distance on Henry.