Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  Barin swallowed the tablets. Well, given his present condition, Chakravarty might spare him a ruthless punishment. But Barin had made up his mind about one thing. He must transfer that clock to the suitcase of its rightful owner. He must try to get this done tonight, if possible. But he could not move until his temperature went down. His body was still shivering occasionally.

  Pulak had switched on the reading lamp over his head. He had a paperback open in his hand. But was he reading it, or was he only staring at a page and thinking of something else? Why did he not turn the page? How long could it take to read a couple of pages?

  Suddenly Barin noticed Pulak’s eyes were no longer fixed on the book. He had turned his head slightly and was looking at Barin. Barin closed his eyes. After a long time, he opened one of them cautiously and glanced at Chakravarty. Yes, he was still staring hard at Barin. Barin promptly shut his eyes again. His heart was jumping like a frog, matching the rhythm of the wheels—lub dup, lub dup, lub dup.

  A faint click told him that the reading light had been switched off. Slightly reassured, he opened both his eyes this time. The light in the corridor outside was coming in through a crack in the door. Barin saw Pulak Chakravarty put his book down on the table beside Barin’s bag. Then he pulled his blanket up to his chin, turned on his side, facing Barin, and yawned noisily.

  Barin’s heartbeats gradually returned to normal. Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow morning he must return the clock. He had noticed Pulak’s suitcase was unlocked. He had gone and changed into a sleeping suit only a little while ago.

  Barin had stopped shivering. Perhaps those tablets had started to work. What were they? He had swallowed them simply so that he would recover in time to be able to sing at that function in Delhi. Applause from an audience was something he had no wish to miss. But had he done a wise thing? What if those pills . . . ?

  No, he must not think about such things. The incident of the glass vibrating against the wall was bad enough. Obviously, all these strange ideas were simply a result of a sick and guilt-ridden mind. Tomorrow, he must find a remedy for this. Without a clear conscience, he could not have a clear voice and his performance would be a total failure. Bengal Association . . . .

  The tinkle of tea cups woke Barin in the morning. A waiter had come in with his breakfast: bread, butter, an omelette and tea. Should he be eating all this? Did he still have a slight fever? No, he did not. In fact, he felt just fine. What wonderful tablets those were! He began to feel quite grateful towards Pulak Chakravarty.

  But where was he? In the bathroom, perhaps. Or was he in the corridor? Barin went out to take a look as soon as the waiter had gone. There was no one in the corridor outside. How long ago had Pulak left? Should he take a chance?

  Barin took a chance, but did not quite succeed in his effort. He had taken the clock out of his own bag and had just bent down to pull out Pulak’s suitcase from under his berth, when his fellow passenger walked in with a towel and a shaving kit in his hands. Barin’s right hand closed around the clock. He straightened himself.

  ‘How are you? All right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Er . . . can you recognize this?’

  Barin opened his palm. The clock lay on it. A strange determination had risen in Barin’s mind. He had got over the old compulsive urge to steal a long time ago. But this business of playing hide-and-seek, was this not a form of deception? All that tension, those uncertainties, the anxiety over should-I-do-it-or-shouldn’t-I, this funny, empty feeling in his stomach, the parched throat, the jumping heart—all these were signs of a malady, were they not? This, too, had to be overcome. There could never be any peace of mind otherwise.

  Pulak Chakravarty had only just started to rub his ears with his towel. The sight of the clock turned him into a statue. His hand holding the towel remained stuck to his ear.

  Barin said, ‘Yes, I am that same man. I’ve put on a bit of weight, shaved my moustaches and have started wearing glasses. I was then going to Patna and you to Delhi. In 1964. Remember that man who got run over by our train? And you went out to investigate? Well, I took your clock in your absence.’

  Pulak’s eyes were now looking straight into Barin’s. Barin saw him frowning deeply, the whites of his eyes had become rather prominent, his lips had parted as though he wanted to say something but could not find speech.

  Barin continued, ‘Actually, it was an illness I used to suffer from. I mean, I am not really a thief. There is a medical term for it which escapes me for the moment. Anyway, I am cured now and am quite normal. I used your clock all these years and was taking it with me to Delhi. Since I happened to meet you—it’s really a miracle, isn’t it?—I thought I’d return it to you. I hope you will not hold any . . . er . . . against me.’

  Pulak Chakravarty could do no more than say ‘thanks’ very faintly. He was still staring at the clock, now transferred to his own hand, totally dumbfounded.

  Barin collected his toothbrush, toothpaste, and shaving kit. Then he took the towel off its rack and went into the bathroom. He broke into song as soon as he had closed the door, and was pleased to note that the old, natural melody in his voice was fully restored.

  * * *

  It took him about three minutes to get N.C. Bhowmik in the Finance Ministry in Delhi. Then, a deep, familiar voice boomed into his ear.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Nitish-da? This is Barin.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve arrived, have you? I’m coming this evening to hear you sing. Even you have turned into a celebrity, haven’t you? My, my, who would have thought it possible? But anyway, what made you ring me?’

  ‘Well—do you happen to know someone called Pulak Chakravarty? He is supposed to have been your batch-mate in college. He knew boxing.’

  ‘Who? Old Pincho?’

  ‘Pincho?’

  ‘Yes, he used to pinch practically everything he saw. Fountain pens, books from the library, tennis racquets from our common room. It was he who stole my first Ronson. It was funny, because it wasn’t as though he lacked anything in life. His father was a rich man. It was actually a kind of ailment.’

  ‘Ailment?’

  ‘Yes, haven’t you ever heard of it? It’s called kleptomania. K-l-e-p . . . .’

  Barin put the receiver down and stared at his open suitcase. He had only just checked into his hotel and started to unpack. No, there was no mistake. A few items were certainly missing from it. A whole carton of Three Castles cigarettes, a pair of Japanese binoculars and a wallet containing five hundred-rupee notes.

  Kleptomania. Barin had forgotten the word. Now it would stay etched in his mind—forever.

  Balbir Arora Goes Metric

  Bill Aitken

  INDIA’S METRE GAUGE POSSESSES A magic of its own. Not only is it more leisurely than the broad gauge imposed by Lord Dalhousie but it gives you more of the essential India, being the only line that can claim to be pan-subcontinental. It runs from Fazilka in the cotton-picking tracts of Punjab all the way south to Tiruchendur in Tamil Nadu where a famous therapeutic temple stands on the ocean shore. In the east it runs from Ledo in Assam, whence ‘Vinegar Joe’s’ Stilwell Road took off over the bamboo hump into Indo-China, all the way to Bhuj and in the desert province of Kutch and beyond to the Arabian Sea. The beauty of the metre gauge to the aesthetic traveller is that it remains rural in its concerns and leans to the curve of natural contours. It does not blast out broad Euclidian proofs that the shortest distance between two points is expensively direct but rather insinuates itself to the lie of the land, traversing up-river in Bihar to choose the least offensive bridging point or veering serpentwise in Madhya Pradesh to outwit the Vindhyan demand for tunnels.

  Above all, the metre gauge is free of the population explosion that swamps its bigger budgetary rival. Move from Old Delhi’s seething BG platforms with their high, inelegant insulation of tin and asbestos sheets and you come to the scaled down beauty of the metre bays with fine wrought-iron work surviving from a superior age on display when quality of
workmanship seemed more important than the strident splash of posters with their litany of mass demands. Life along the metre gauge is unfrazzled and bookings for a second class sleeper coach can usually be done the same day you travel. The ease of spacious metric journeying provides a welcome respite from the scrum of main-line jostlings.

  To the student of railway lore and lover of the iron horse the metre gauge also gives the bonus of steam traction and, fortuitously for the aesthete, the most resilient stable of YP express locos, (matched by their goods variant the YG) which are scaled-down models of the handsome ‘Niagaras’ that epitomized the golden age of American steam trains in their classic coupling of performance and style, speed and reliability. Though battered and now kept running only by the innovative ingenuity of Indian railwaymen long after their intended life-span, these big-hearted steam engines will see out the prescribed span for coal-fired motive power. Probably no other locomotive in India gives as much pleasure as these ancient blinkered Telcos (built by Tata at Jamshedpur thirty years ago), especially if you catch them at work on a branch line. The declining fleet of broad gauge WP’s with their sleek bullet-nosed boilers might appear more flashy but even flat out at speed (a measly 45 mph) they seem dwarfed by the width of double track and score less on the scale of ‘steam at work’ which requires both frantic visibility of working parts and the urgent poetics of sibilant pistons. The difference between diesel and steam is the hiatus between a tossed back best-seller and the lingering savour on the palate that betokens true literature. Whereas we toast the best-selling author’s cleverness but dump his work amongst the empties, so the modest impact of being pulled by diesel is instantly forgettable. Contrast the deep musical rumbling echoes of Dr Johnson or Sir Thomas Browne in the stately flow of liveried words. How very apt that with the decline and fall of the steam age these metre gauge veterans should conjure from their leaking glands the sonorous tread of Edmund Gibbon.

  If I have been carried away by the orchestral performance of a working YG on a branch line, toiling round tight curves deep into the lush jungles of North Kannada with screaming flanges outsirened by the whee-whee-wheeee of her blind whistle as she carves a course through the nodding bamboo fronds that brush the driver’s face as he strains to read his signal, it is only fair to give the other side of the metre gauge reckoning. Let us cease from the backwoods ballad of unremunerative traffic, (where I am the sole ticket-holding passenger on the empty 211 Up Alanavar-Dandeli Mixed) and switch to the upmarket symphony of the money-spinning ‘Palace on Wheels’, (POW) whose music is every bit as fascinating.

  When I received an invitation from the Press Information Officer at Rail Bhavan—the assiduously spruced and polished headquarters of Indian Railways whose corridors are immaculately free of that depressing symbol of unmet official targets, the spittoon—my first instinct was to decline the offer to ride a brand new rake that heralded a modernized version of the dollar-raking ‘Palace on Wheels’. For a start the freelance writer has only his credibility to fall back upon and once the public associates his outpourings with the subsidized slant of sponsors he is effectively vasectomised. By accepting a free ride at Indian Railways’ expense would I not be announcing my thraldom to official policy and fall into the silken trap of preferring to flatter my hosts rather than stigmatize my reputation with the label of namak harami? It was for such times of moral dilemma and intellectual indecision that God presumably created women. ‘don’t be an idiot,’ said Prithwi, my companion of twenty years. ‘Think of all the debts written off and your time and energy wasted by government servants, plus the fact that you have always gone out of your way to give Indian Railways a good write-up. They owe you this trip.’ It was true that I had invested a lot of time and expense in tracking down aspects of Indian railway history that appealed to me but no one expects a refund for real pleasures enjoyed. Sadly, however, time and again my researches were hindered by the very railwaymen I had set out to magnify. Even when armed with letters of permission from the highest level in Delhi to visit loco sheds and other similar vintage assets where the security risk was absolutely minimal I found spite and harassment awaiting my researches and access to historically valuable evidence stymied by the dog in the manger attitudes of pettyminded railwaymen. It took years for it to dawn why this rash urge of regional railwaymen to cross swords with Delhi should be provoked by my harmless presence. Then one day I saw some metre gauge sidings being whitewashed and a flurry of flunkeys descend to announce the arrival of the special coach of their chief engineer on a tour of inspection. By the time he came, all the scams that his arrival should have checked had been conveniently swept under the carpet. Indian Railways as one of the world’s biggest employer’s maintains a staff of such huge proportions that there is bound to be scope for hanky panky in alienating public property into the hands of private parties. The untimely arrival of persons like myself in such situations could only trigger off panic followed by the bluff that the dictates of Delhi did not run here.

  The same flurry of flunkeys greeted my arrival at Delhi cantonment where the inaugural run of the new luxury rake would be flagged off by the Rail mantri. I confess my opinion of the POW had been pretty low mainly from its disappointing reputation for actual railway atmosphere. It was more a snob’s tour of Rajasthan’s palaces, according to friends who had paid its steepish fare. Confirmed rail travellers who had been on the Venice Simplon Orient, the Trans Siberian and South Africa’s Blue Train all complained that from the railway angle they had felt short-changed by the old POW. Also they had found the original saloons of the Rajputana maharajas hot, dusty and grinding and it was for this reason, we were told, Indian Railways had decided to build a new, air-conditioned rake to seek to capture the mood of princely travel but in greater comfort.

  The reception arrangements were chaotic and had it not been for the two superbly caparisoned YG steamers (sent down the line from Bandikui) simmering in all their buffed splendour, I might have turned on my heel and declined to put my fate in the hands of such incompetents. After furious consultations of lists, everyone of which seemed to differ, I was shown to a smart, three-bedded cabin. One’s first impressions of the train would have been marvellous had it not been for the flapping officials racing up and down trying to match their incompatible lists. Exhausted even before the train had got up steam, I scooped up the bed-side trinkets bearing the Palace logo (soap, pen and notepaper) as souvenirs. Hardly had I stowed away my perks when the officials announced I must move. It appears that because my name sounded American I had been awarded a cabin to myself. But on discovering that I was a mere Indian they asked me to kindly move down to the back of the train and share a cabin with a fellow journalist.

  When I related the story to Subhash Kirpekar, the parliamentary reporter of the Times of India, he immediately worked out a solution to avoid any further demotions from the prestigious rank of Yank. I should insist my initials ‘B.A.’ refer to an irrefutable Indian identity. Thus for the duration of the week on wheels I would answer to the appellation ‘Balbir Arora’.

  The initial reaction of the press to their luxurious cabins was relief that they did not have to pay, especially in view of the somewhat cramped quarters. There was also criticism of the poor watering of passengers, and passing along the sleek carpeted corridors of the ivory-exteriored coaches one could hear several groans as over-optimistic latherers found the water pressure inadequate to dislodge their soap suds. At a press conference in Jaipur the railway authorities admitted to a few ‘teething problems’ but had no answer to the charge that real maharajas would not have bathed from plastic buckets. But with the unpredictability of the water supply the status of buckets had become academic. The critics shook the dust of the Palace off their wheels and returned to Delhi to describe our new train as a cruel hoax. Significantly none of the European tourists on board complained. Perhaps the problem lay in the broad gauge perceptions of the critics. Not many countries exceed the British standard gauge so that your average tourist
does not expect to flourish his elbows on a train. Press critics from the Gangetic tracts accustomed to plenty of water and pampered with stretching space failed to adjust to the metric restraints of the desert. Another distracting feature for the main line passenger is that his trajectory through the night, thanks to the BG coupling, follows the flight of the arrow whereas the single-link of the metre gauge coach emulates the yaw of a yacht. Add to this the fact that the fast lines are continually upgraded with ballast onto which secure cement sleepers are laid and you have a much smoother ride. Also, the big trunk routes now have welded rails that delete the clickety-clicks of the old ninety pounder lines though to the railway buff this breakthrough is hardly viewed as a virtue. Not only has the music fled but the speed of the train for the cerebrally minded is now less easily calculated. What is a railway after all without its clicks and clacks?

  The tourist attractions of the POW make it a bargain package and no one has ever complained that Rajasthan Tourism fell short on its promises to reveal a dizzying round of princely residences. In fact the only criticism I heard was that the Railways, partner in the POW venture went overboard and exposed the leg-weary tourists to so many palaces that Rajasthan’s royal lifestyle began to come out of their ears. I was no stranger to Rajasthan’s fecundity in the matter of feudal fastnesses and took good care on this repeat visit to curtail my explorations to only the very best of the palatial pickings. That meant sitting out Jaipur and Jodhpur and waiting for Udaipur and Jaisalmer to arrive. Even then one could not escape converted forts and palaces doubling as restaurants when it came to eat. While the stationary buffet lunches at these five star establishments were satisfactory and for the most part laid out amidst splendidly impressive (not quite the same as saying ‘useless’) settings, the tastiest food undoubtedly was served on the train’s two dining cars. Here again a metre gauge diner is hardly the place for two all-in wrestlers to sit cheek by jowl but in view of the presence of several slim lady journalists the seating arrangements were always satisfactorily resolved. One of the tour’s most lasting impressions was the contrast between the graceful femininity of the Indian Press contingent and the hefty input of overseas unshapeliness. (Great beefy memsahibs who found the ‘outsize’ in Indian ready-made garments shops too small were politely referred to try the ‘Russian’ size.)