DUST ON MOUNTAIN: COLLECTED STORIES Read Free

nature, and kept bobbing up and down on the seat, waving the bag in the poor man’s face.
    Suddenly the boy’s mother, who had been engrossed in conversation with another woman, turned and saw what was happening. She walloped the boy over the head and the suddenness of the blow (it was more of a thump than a slap) made him fall back against the window, and the cloth bag fell from his hand on to the railway embankment outside.
    Now Daya Ram’s first impulse was to leap out of the moving train. But when someone shouted, ‘Pull the alarm cord!’ he decided on this course of action. He plunged for the alarm cord, but just at the moment someone else shouted, ‘Don’t pull the cord!’ and Daya Ram who usually listened to others, stood in suspended animation, waiting for further directions.
    ‘Too many people are stopping trains every day all over India,’ said one of the card players, who wore large thick-rimmed spectacles over a pair of tiny humourless eyes, and was obviously a post office counter-clerk. ‘You people are becoming a menace to the railways.’
    ‘Exactly,’ said the other card player. ‘You stop the train on the most trifling excuses. What is your trouble?’
    ‘My money has fallen out,’ said Daya Ram.
    ‘Why didn’t you say so!’ exclaimed the clerk, jumping up. ‘Stop the train!’
    ‘Sit down,’ said his companion, ‘it’s too late now. The train cannot wait here until he walks half a mile back down the line. How much did you lose?’ he asked Daya Ram.
    ‘Ten rupees.’
    ‘And you have no more?’
    Daya Ram shook his head.
    ‘Then you had better leave the train at the next station and go back for it.’
    The next station, Harrawala, was about ten miles from the spot where the money had fallen. Daya Ram got down from the train and started back along the railway track. He was a well-built man, with strong legs and a dark, burnished skin. He wore a vest and dhoti, and had a red cloth tied round his head. He walked with long, easy steps, but the ground had been scorched by the burning sun, and it was not long before his feet were smarting. His eyes too were unaccustomed to the glare of the plains, and he held a hand up over them, or looked at the ground. The sun was high in the sky, beating down on his bare arms and legs. Soon his body was running with sweat, his vest was soaked through and sticking to his skin.
    There were no trees anywhere near the lines, which ran straight to the hazy blue horizon. There were fields in the distance, and cows grazed on short grass, but there were no humans in sight. After an hour’s walk, Daya Ram felt thirsty; his tongue was furred, his gums dry, his lips like parchment. When he saw a buffalo wallowing in a muddy pool, he hurried to the spot and drank thirstily of the stagnant water.
    Still, his pace did not slacken. He knew of only one way to walk, and that was at this steady long pace. At the end of another hour he felt sure he had passed the place where the bag had fallen. He had been inspecting the embankment very closely, and now he felt discouraged and dispirited. But still he walked on. He was worried more by the thought of his wife’s attitude than by the loss of the money or the problem of the next meal.
    Rather than turn back, he continued walking until he reached the next station. He kept following the lines, and after half an hour dragged his aching feet on to Raiwala platform. To his surprise and joy, he saw a note in Hindi on the notice board: ‘Anyone having lost a bag containing some notes and coins may inquire at the stationmaster’s office.’ Some honest man or woman or child had found the bag and handed it in. Daya Ram felt, that his faith in the goodness of human nature had been justified.
    He rushed into the office and, pushing aside an indignant clerk, exclaimed: ‘You have found my money!’
    ‘What money?’ snapped the harassed-looking official. ‘And don’t just charge in here shouting at the top of your voice, this is