Train to Delhi (18 page)

A wave of exultation rose within Gautam; then he felt as though his body was winding down, and he was coming down a giant magic wheel that had carried him up midair. A delicious languor now crept into his brain. He dozed off.

When he awoke, Haseena was gone. There was no trace of her anywhere.

Then his eyes fell upon a letter on his desk, clipped in a hairpin.

Dearest Gautam,

Since you've gone into a benign slumber, I wouldn't even dare kiss you goodbye. That would be a sort of sacrilege. There you lie on the bed, breathing heavily, naked and defenceless, like a babe.

Yes, I love you—very much. I couldn't bring myself to speaking it out, like so many other things I should like you to know. The written word can be such a comfort since it's a sort of smokescreen to cover up the brazen exposure of the spoken word.

I want to be with you always, everywhere. I've decided to tell mother about it. No more subterfuges for me. Doesn't lying taint the soul? Salma has been asking me about you. Mother and uncle, I think, have already guessed something about us. But now they'll all know directly from me …

In fact, I've become quite fearless. I'm no longer frightened of the panda, or Pannalal. What will be, will be. There comes a moment in one's life when one just wants to be. Perhaps it's also because I've now come to believe in fate. How else would you have come into my life—and in those circumstances?

So I'll let things take their own course. Let's see how and when the panda's men would launch the raid on Kashana. Remember, how that man was startled to hear my name? He's surely a racketeer, a member of some mafia. But I can now take them on, Bhole and Pannalal, single or jointly—if I have your love.

My only regret is that I couldn't come to you as a virgin. But if virginity is as much a state of the body as of mind, I felt this afternoon like a nun who renounces her church to take a man she's fallen in love with.

I feel I should let you have two days to work on your assignment—your article for The Challenge. In any case, I'll be busy all Friday when the family will offer a special namaz at the Medina Mosque for my father's soul.

So take care, my dearest, till Saturday. I'll be waiting for you at the tea-stall, at two.

Only yours,

Haseena

PS: Since you wrote to my mother in Urdu, let me share these verses with you, from a ghazal by a local poet, now migrated to Pakistan:

Let there be no talk of pain

For this moment of peace has dropped

With the summer rain—

Drink it up!

Let all our yesterdays be cinders.

Come, my soul, let this moment stir

Us into a new ectasy

Known only to angels

For they commune not through words alone.

19

F
or the next two days, Gautam remained under the spell of Haseena's letter, reading it over and over as though it were the gospel of love, till each word of it had etched itself on the tablet of his memory. Well, if he wouldn't be able to see her till Saturday, he told himself, he might as well start working on his article on communal harmony.

But his mind, still preoccupied with Haseena, refused to settle down to writing. Then, on Friday morning, something flashed across his mind—why not use the Ashoka Pillar in the fort as a convenient symbol to organize his ideas on the subject? Since he'd also planned to pick up his mail at the General Post Office (in case Berry, his father or his editor had wanted to contact him), he could easily walk over from there to the fort, which was only a short distance away.

So after lunch, he put on his dhoti, kurta and khadi jacket (since he knew he'd be moving about in the vicinity of the holy Ganges), and got into a tonga. Reaching the GPO, he saw a large crowd of people doing their postal chores. It was after a long wait that he got to the general counter for poste restante, behind which stood a tall, snub-nosed man doling out mail to people in the queue.

Gautam received two letters, one from his father and the other from Berry. His father wrote how tactfully he'd handled Bishop Jones who'd come on a sort of fact-finding mission. ‘It seems his servant learnt from Purnima how you'd used the church for your divorce. But don't worry. I have explained away everything. However, you should call on him when you return, even attend a couple of Sunday sermons to take the edge off his suspicion.'

The letter from Berry was just a casual thing. He wanted Gautam to ‘have a good time. But don't overdo it, old boy.' Then he mentioned how he was looking forward to a party at Bob's, on Saturday, for which he'd personally come to invite him. ‘Surely, there'd be some white stuff there.' The letter ended: ‘Don't feel too anxious about me. I'm keeping myself miles away from Neel Kamal. Only once did I stop off at the tobacconist's for a Banarsi paan, but after making sure that Pannalal was nowhere around. And that's where I learnt that the pimp was out of station. “Gone to meet his relatives,” said the tobacconist. So just relax.'

As Gautam stood on the steps of the main entrance, holding the letters in his hand, he became conscious of someone watching him. It was a man sporting a jockey cap, the front flap pulled down across his eyes.

First, the man lingered near the telephone booth, as though waiting for his turn to make a call, then he moved over to a column in the central hall. Somehow Gautam felt intrigued by his movements. Why was he constantly switching from one place to another? Was he waiting for someone to finish his postal chores so that he could join him? Or maybe, Gautam thought, he was subconsciously still being haunted by Bhole. But if it was the
panda,
he would have certainly recognized him in spite of the hooded face.

Gautam put the letters into his pocket, shook his mind off Father Jones and the
panda,
and began to walk towards the fort. A few people had already started moving in that direction.

Suddenly, the sun broke through the slit of a large cloud, and the ground began to glisten like a sheet of glass. A sense of uneasiness descended upon everybody. But since Gautam was at the head of the trail, he felt happy to enter the fort before the heat became unbearable.

He stayed inside the fort for about an hour and a half, gathering from his guide (who kept lecturing away almost like a professor of history) all the information about the triple-faceted Ashoka Pillar, with its Hindu, Muslim and Christian associations. He was shown the spot where the British had been massacred during the Mutiny, and the Pyramidal Tower from where one of Emperor Akbar's Hindu wives used to watch the Triveni before saying her morning prayers.

It was, however, the Ashoka Pillar that interested him the most. Alongside the famous edict, engraved in Pali, was given the English translation, on a separate plaque:

True religion does not recognize any barriers

Between one human being and the other. It embraces all living creatures—man, animal and bird.

Compassion, endurance, understanding and love are man's greatest treasures.

Here was the vision of an ancient Indian emperor. Gautam wondered if the hate-torn India of today would respond to this message of love and peace.

By the time he came out of the fort, it was late afternoon, but the sun was still holding forth in all its fury. Ominously bare, without a shred of cloud, the sky was throbbing with the white glare of heat.

Since there weren't any trees around, Gautam walked down the steps to the fort's base, near the bank of the Ganges. He now sat on a rock, in cool privacy. He'd wait there, he thought, till the scorching afternoon deepened into evening.

Soon he felt that his mind was losing contact with the human world. Far away he saw the Triveni, the silken borderline between the two holy rivers. However, it was again the transcendent Saraswati that gripped his imagination. He fancied a white stream flowing under the Ganges and the Jumna, unseen and untouched. He knew it was a mere illusion, a hoax played by
pandas
on the gullible pilgrims. But now he willingly surrendered himself to this fantasy. Hadn't this belief somehow held the minds of countless generations of Hindus? Here they came with the ashes of their dead, and prayed for their rebirth as humans. Indeed, the invisible was always more potent than the visible—that's why the Saraswati claimed supremacy over the Ganges and the Jumna. As he sat there musing, a whiff of breeze wafted across the waters, ruffling his hair. It was bracing, tranquil and cool.

Suddenly, he heard the muffled footsteps of someone inching closer towards him, and then a shadow lengthened across the rock on which he was sitting. Perhaps it was someone like him, Gautam thought, looking for a quiet spot. But, instantly, he noticed the shadow of a man wearing a jockey cap. He was startled; but before he could get to his feet, the man had already emerged from behind the rock. And there he was—Pannalal! As the pimp now took off his cap, Gautam saw his balding head, his bushy eyebrows. He was holding a long knife in his right hand—all primed up for the assault.

Gautam went pallid with mortal fear, cold sweat appearing on his forehead.

‘So here we meet again, sir …' the man grinned, baring his betel-stained teeth. ‘I saw you heading for the fort. I took the longer route to let you first do some sightseeing. Liked the fort?'

‘Oh!' stuttered Gautam.

‘Thank you for choosing such a quiet spot for our reunion,' said Pannalal; then added, ‘Where's she?'

‘I don't know.'

Gautam looked about desperately to find some avenue for escape, but he felt helplessly trapped this time. On one side swirled the russet waters of the Ganges, on the other loomed the man.

‘Looking for some way out?' he growled; his upper lip pursed in a sneer. ‘Not a ghost of a chance.' He paused. ‘Unless you tell me where she is … I've contacts on the river, and nobody would tell where your body was thrown. So will you speak out? … Where's she?'

‘I've already answered.'

‘Don't forget,' he said, gnashing his teeth, ‘I can still spare your life, if you let me know.'

‘Perhaps it's one of the Muslim mohallas,' Gautam mumbled, now thinking it prudent to keep the conversation running to gain time.

‘Which mohalla? … Baradari, Ibadat, Meena or Kashana? I've already checked at the first.'

‘Meena.'

‘You're dodging me. You're wasting my time,' he blared, lunging with his knife towards Gautam's left shoulder, ripping off his shirt. Blood began to drip from his collar bone.

A film appeared before Gautam's eyes. He almost staggered on his feet.

‘There, you see,' the man resumed, ‘your crimson blood is greeting you. Touch it with your right hand and feel its fresh warmth … I'll wait till I get the right answer.' Then, raising his voice to a threatening pitch and pointing his knife at Gautam's throat: ‘Haven't I waited long enough? Your friend had me stripped on the platform! … Yes, I knew you'd come to the General Post Office for your mail, visit the fort or have a dip in the Ganges. How could you be in Allahabad and miss the Holy Trinity? See, how very patiently I've waited for my moment. It's my turn now. If you don't tell the truth, I'll make minced meat of you. Understand?'

‘It's Mohalla Meena, truthfully,' Gautam replied, looking death-pale. His right hand now felt the blood seeping through his kurta.

A streak of pain shot through his body.

‘What house number?'

Pannalal looked a little interested, now withdrawing his knife from Gautam's throat.

‘House number eighteen, lane four. Just behind the butcher's shop, opposite the Tibbia Clinic.'

Gautam had regained his mental nimbleness, in spite of the pain that was now racking his shoulder. A plethora of details would do it, he knew. The game of numbers!

As Pannalal was lapping up this information, his eyes probing Gautam's face, a large lizard crept up through the sand—its translucent belly panting with heat, its tongue flicking in and out of the air. It stopped for a moment as though looking curiously at the two men.

The crinkle of the lizard crawling over a dry leaf sounded in Gautam's ears. The creature was now moving towards Pannalal. It was a harmless thing, Gautam knew, still …

‘A snake!' Gautam cried out, pointing towards the lizard.

Since Pannalal had also heard the rustle, he turned around sharply to see.

In a flash, Gautam leapt forward and kicked the man in the stomach with all his frenzied strength. The pimp reeled, his knife dropping out of his hand. Instantly, Gautam picked up the weapon; then, pouncing upon him, like a wounded leopard, he plunged it into his heart.

A piercing cry, and the pimp slumped on the ground, his blood streaming into the sand.

And then, as he let the knife drop from his hand, Gautam felt as though he had had a stroke of sensory paralysis. Momentarily, his ears were muffled and his eyes darkened. It was only after a while that he realized he was still alive, while the other man lay dead at his feet.

Indeed, he'd lied himself out of death, just as he'd lied to get his divorce. But wasn't lying justified in certain circumstances? After all, the only sin was the lie that tainted the soul—not the one which only counteracted evil itself.

But while lying may be sometimes justified, how could one condone one's killing of a human being, howsoever evil? He recalled how, as a small boy, he used to listen to his father reciting verses from the Gita, dramatizing the argument between Prince Arjuna and Lord Krishna, the former hesitating to kill his own kinsmen on the battlefield, while the latter exhorted him to kill them for a noble cause. In any case, Gautam said to himself, he had had to choose between killing or getting killed.

He now saw himself standing over a dead body, oblivious even of his own bleeding shoulder. What if someone caught sight of him there red-handed (and indeed his hands were blood-stained), even though such killings were now daily occurrences all over the country? Still, he mustn't let the dead body lie there exposed to the vultures. So mute and helpless did Pannalal look in death that he now felt compassion for him, not hatred.