Train to Delhi Read Free Page B

companies. Behind this forefront lie bungalows and multi-storeyed apartments, owned or rented by the Hindu staff attatched mostly to various offices on the main road. Tucked away in the hinterland of this residential area are the regional offices of The Times of India and its allied publications.
    Nearby, are a couple of three-star hotels (though in respect of service and amenities they could be ranked starless), which cater to the lower middle-class clientele. Farther, in the rear, is a lacklustre street that runs parallel to the main road. It is cluttered with grubby bakeries, slipshod general stores, wayside tea-stalls and private coaching institutes.
    The original town-planners had indeed provided a few parks between complexes of apartments, but these are now rarely frequented by the local residents because of heaps of garbage that lie stinking there.
    Although the rear segment of this part of Darya Ganj is walled in by a battered, historic rampart, it offers no protection whatsoever against burglars at night or trespassers during day. Under its fractured cupolas now sleep at night beggars, pickpockets and daily-wage earners.
    In contrast with the affluence of the Hindu sector, the other sector, inhabited by Muslims, looks rather impoverished. There are no banks or bookshops here, only petty stalls of tobacconists, book-binders and vegetable sellers. A small dilapidated mosque, sooty and unplastered, offers some religious solace to the Muslims of this area.
    The only redeeming feature of this side of Faiz Bazaar is a large restaurant, Neel Kamal, whose cuisine is a great attraction for the entire capital. Although owned by a Hindu refugee from Pakistan, it draws its patrons from all communities—Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis and even Muslims.
    Neel Kamal’s hospitality is limitless. It offers its patrons everything—‘wine, women and song’—to use an apt cliché. No wonder, it is also a hang-out for pimps, who can be seen nearby at the tobacconist’s stall. One of them may ask you genially if you’d be interested in ‘some good stuff—virgin or married, Hindu or Muslim.’
    For the customers of modest means, or those who prefer an open-air romantic setting for a brief fling, there are the historical ruins known as Kotla Feroze Shah, just a few yards away from the Delhi Gate. Or, if you could spend a little money, you may hire a room for any part of the day or night at the Bridge Hotel, a subsidiary of Neel Kamal, next to the Kotla ruins.
    It was a roundabout tonga ride via Kotla Feroze Shah, where the Sikh tonga driver stopped, hoping to pick up an additional passenger or two. Since there was nobody on the road at that time, he poked the horse’s behind with a bamboo stick, then lashed him into a canter, shouting a Punjabi abuse: ‘You impotent bastard, fit only to sleep with your mother!’ As though insulted and injured, the animal broke into a gallop, raced past the Delhi Gate police station, till it was reined in near Neel Kamal. Here, Gautam paid off the driver and waited for a long column of military trucks to rumble past before he could cross the road.
    At a quarter past seven, the daylight still lingered nostalgically over the housetops. It appeared as if the sun had gradually withdrawn all its advance pennons at the day’s end. In a few minutes, the sky was covered with a medley of dull orange, hectic crimson and murky grey. But, in spite of the shades of evening, the heat still held the capital in its relentless grip. There had hardly been any rain during the entire month of August, as though nature had deliberately smothered the monsoons to provide a grim backdrop to the drama of hate and violence being enacted in Delhi, during that cataclysmic year—1947.
    As the last truck rolled past, Gautam strode across the road. He wondered if he would have time even for a brief word with his wife, Sarita. If the commissioner of police decided to clamp a