Bhowani Junction Read Free Page A

after those luxurious air-conditioned offices in Delhi.
    My God, I felt fed up. I stood inside the door and bawled, ‘Get out! Hut jao, you black bastards!’ Some of the people edged out, others edged in. I reached the desk and said, ‘My God, Kasel, what the hell is going on here? What are all these people doing in here? What has bloody well happened?’ I tell you I was mad, and so ashamed for what Victoria had seen of my office.
    Kasel was a slight, tall Indian with a thin face. He was about thirty years old and always wore a turban because he was a Sikh. He had a high-bridged nose and always looked so damned sad I could kick him. He got up quickly when he saw us, and bowed to Victoria. Then he sat down again, twiddling a pencil in his hands, and said, ‘The coal train, Number Two-O-Four-Three, ran off the rails at Pathoda. No one was hurt. The District Engineer said——’
    I didn’t want to know what the D.E, had said or done. I wanted to know what he had done. I asked him.
    He said, ‘I have informed Transportation, Civil, Mechanical, Medical, and Police. I’m holding all branch line traffic,but Four-O-Five is here now and ready to go. I was proposing to send her up to Pathoda on time. She can change passengers there with Four-O-Six. Then I have sent for a light engine from Bhanas to pull the wagons back from the derailment,’ and he went on about what he had done.
    It sounded all right, so I said to him, ‘What the hell are these people doing in here? It is like a bloody circus.’ Again I shouted at everyone to get out.
    Surabhai, the Congress fellow who looked like Eddie Cantor, had found his way up there He faced me and joined his palms together and said, ‘We are only poor natives, good sir. Forgive us for it. We have come to ask when, by your favour, we may expect to be allowed to entrain on those trains for which we have bought tickets.’ He was very excited. He fairly danced around, like a boxer, as he spoke.
    I think Victoria wanted to laugh, but I did not see anything to laugh at. It was disgraceful, the whole thing. I said to Surabhai, ‘You’ll hear in good time. Now get out of here, all of you. Bahar jao, ek dum! ’
    Surabhai danced forward again, his eyes popping at me and his mouth opening, and I was getting ready to be really rude to him. Then Kasel at the desk said, ‘ Please, Mr Surabhai,’ and the fellow subsided, and after a few mutterings followed the others out of the room.
    Kasel got out of the chair behind the desk, and I sat down. It was my chair, and I didn’t like the way he had butted in with Surabhai. I told him to get a chair for Victoria—‘For Miss Jones,’ I said. Then I told him to give me more details. I wanted to know first whether it was an accident or sabotage.
    He stood there beside my table, and Victoria smiled at him to thank him for getting the chair. If he heard my question he didn’t answer it. He was smiling back at her, almost ogling her. So I said, ‘Well?’ as sharply as I could. That took the smile off his face.
    He said. ‘We don’t know yet. The District Engineer has gone up on the trolley with the District Mechanical Engineer and one or two others. The breakdown train’s gone to Pathoda.’
    I stubbed out the cigarette that I’d only just lit. I was getting angrier all the time. ‘Well—oh, damn it,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’d better go up. I bet you it was sabotage, and I bet you the bloody Congress did it.’ I said that because I was sure as eggs that Kasel was secretly a Congressman. Railway officers were not allowed to join political parties in those days, but I was sure.
    He said—and he spoke quite hotly for him—‘We don’t know enough about it yet to say, Mr Taylor.’
    ‘Oh, but I am betting you,’ I said. Kasel looked like a boy of about twelve who is hurt over something but trying not to show it.
    Then I had an idea that I might still be able to save some fun out of the day. I asked Victoria to come to Pathoda with me.