The Calcutta Chromosome

by Amitav Gosh

  Before leaving Darbhanga Phulboni had asked the guard on the train to let him know before they arrived in Renupur. The journey took eight hours, but to the young writer it seemed to pass in a matter of minutes. Long before he had slaked his appetite for the landscape, the guard appeared to tell him that they were almost at Renupur.

  Phulboni was astonished: looking out of the window all he could see were flooded fields, the still waters broken only by the careful geometry of bunds and embankments. An occasional distant curl of wood smoke, spiralling out of a thicket of trees, suggested a village or a hamlet but he could see no sign whatever of habitation on a scale that might earn entitlement to a railway station.

  On expressing his surprise to the guard Phulboni learnt, to his alarm, that the town (or rather village) of Renupur was some three miles distant from the station that bore its name. Renupur was by no means large or important enough to merit a deviation in the tracks that linked Darbhanga to Barich. Those of Renupur's villagers who wished to avail themselves of this facility were expected instead to make the journey to the station in a bullock cart. Indeed, the station of Renupur owed its existence more to the demands of engineering than to the requirements of the local population. Railway regulations decreed that single-track lines such as this were required to have sidings at regular intervals, so that oncoming trains could pass each other in safety. It was thus that Renupur came to boast of a station: it was really little more than a signboard and a platform attached to a siding.

  It was all just red tape and regulations of course, the guard said. There was no real need for a siding on this line. This was the only train that ever used this length of track. It went chugging along, stopping wherever the slightest pretext offered itself, until it came to the end of the line. And then it simply turned around and headed back. It never encountered other trains until it reached Darbhanga.

  The guard was an odd-looking man. He had a grotesquely twisted face: his lower jaw was so much out of alignment with the upper that his mouth was perpetually open in a crooked, leering grimace. Now he began to laugh, in his dry, rustling voice. Leaning out of the window he pointed to a length of track that ran alongside the main line for a couple of hundred yards before rejoining it. The tracks were so rusted and overgrown as to be barely visible.

  'And there you see the Renupur siding,' he said, thrusting his face close to Phulboni's and showering him with blood-red pan-spittle. 'As you can tell, it's not used. They say it's only ever been used once, and that was many, many years ago.'

  Phulboni paid no attention: he was too busy wiping the pan-stains off his face.

  The train ground to a halt and the guard flung a door open and scurried down carrying Phulboni's gun-bag and portmanteau. Before Phulboni could tip him, he was back on the train waving his green flag.

  'Wait a minute,' Phulboni cried, taken aback.

  With a blast of its whistle the train pulled slowly away.

  Phulboni looked around him and saw, to his considerable surprise, that he was the only person who had disembarked at Renupur. He cast a last, lingering glance at the train and saw the guard watching him from a window, his mouth hanging maniacally open. Then the train gave another blast of its whistle and the strange twisted face vanished into a cloud of smoke.

  Phulboni shrugged and bent down to pick up his luggage. He was impatient to be on his way to the village and instinctively he held up a hand, to summon a coolie. It was not till then that he noticed that there were no coolies anywhere in sight.

  The station was the smallest Phulboni had ever seen, smaller even than those tiny village stations that sometimes loom unexpectedly into view as one drowses in a speeding train, only to disappear again, just as quickly. For even the smallest stations usually have at least a platform, and often a few wooden benches too. But the platform at Renupur was a length of beaten earth, its surface covered in weeds and a few cracked paving stones. Two creaking signboards hung beside the track, separated by a hundred yards, each bearing the barely legible legend: 'Renupur'. Halfway between them, serving as a signal-room-cum-station-house, was a ramshackle tin-roofed brick structure, painted the usual railway red. There were no houses or huts anywhere in sight, no villagers, no railway guards, no staring rustics, no urchins, no food-vendors, no beggars, no sleeping travellers, not even the inevitable barking dog.

  Phulboni realized, looking around him, that the station was empty – absolutely empty. There was nobody, not a single human being anywhere in sight. The spectacle was so startling as literally to provoke disbelief. Stations, in the young writer's experience, were either crowded or less crowded. They were less crowded when you could walk through them unimpeded, without having to push people aside. On the rare occasions when that happened you said, in surprise: 'Why, the station's empty today!', using the term metaphorically, conjuring away the coolies and the vendors and the dozing passengers and the waiting relatives and so on who, without actually impeding your progress, were still undeniably present. That, as far as the young writer knew, was what the word empty meant when applied to a station. But this? Phulboni, for all his gifts, was at a loss to think of a word to describe a station that was literally uninhabited and unpeopled.

  The young man's heart sank as he contemplated that desolate spot. He had no idea where to go next or how. There was no road or pathway in sight. The station, perched on the railway embankment, was a little island in a sea of shimmering floodwater.

  Phulboni had been led to believe that someone would meet him at the station: a shopkeeper or stall-owner or some other person who dealt in Palmer's products. But here he was, in Renupur, and so far as he could see, he was the sole occupant of the station. Picking up his beddingroll, he slung his gun over his shoulder, and set off for the signal-room to see if he could find the stationmaster. No sooner had he taken his first few steps than he heard a voice behind him, calling out, 'Sahib, sahib.' Turning around, Phulboni saw a tiny, bandy-legged man, scrambling up the embankment. He was dressed in a mud-stained dhoti and a railwayman's coat and he was holding a brass pitcher by its lip.

  Phulboni was so relieved to see another human being that he would gladly have embraced him. But mindful of his status as a representative of Palmer Brothers he stiffened his back and raised his chin.

  The man caught up with Phulboni and took the beddingroll out of his hands.

  'Arrey, sahib,' he said, panting. 'What to do? Every time the rains start it's like this with me: back and forth, out to the fields and in again. If I eat so much as one banana it goes shooting right through and out again like a cannonball. It's an affliction. The-one-who-is-at-home always says to me, she says, "Arrey, Budhhu Dubey, if you were a cow instead of a stationmaster at least I would be able to do all my cooking with your dung." And I say to her, "Woman, think a little before you speak. Just ask yourself, if I was a cow instead of a stationmaster why would you need to cook for me?"

  Phulboni's mouth twitched, but being new at the job he was not quite sure of the tone that was expected of a representative of Palmer Brothers in situations like these. Sensing his hesitation, Budhhu Dubey was already the picture of contrition.

  'Oh, sahib,' he said. 'Budhhu Dubey is a fool, telling a big sahib like you about his dung. Forgive me, forgive me… '

  He threw himself at Phulboni's feet. Now it was all the writer could do to keep him from buffing his shoes with his forehead.

  Phulboni pulled him up, brusquely. 'Enough of that,' he said. 'Tell me, how can I get to Renupur?'

  'That's the thing,' the stationmaster said, apologetically. 'Even if you had a boat you would not be able to get to Renupur today.'

  Phulboni was aghast. 'But where will I stay?' he said. 'What will I do?'

  'Nothing to worry about, sahib,' said the stationmaster. He gave Phulboni a wide grin. 'You will stay with me.' He explained that a shopkeeper had sent word from Renupur asking him to look after Phulboni.

  Phulboni pondered this proposition at some length. 'Where do you live?' he asked finally.r />
  'Right there,' said the stationmaster, 'behind those trees.' He pointed at a distant mango grove, perched upon a gentle rise. To Phulboni the spot seemed to be separated from the station by some two or three miles of waterlogged plain.

  'It won't take a moment to get there,' said the stationmaster. 'We'll leave your bags in the signal room and then we'll start walking. You'll see, by the time we get there, the-one-who-is-at-home will have something special ready for you.'

  He picked up Phulboni's bedding-roll and started towards the signal-room, swaying on his bandy legs. Phulboni followed close behind, carrying his canvas gun-bag. Pushing the door gingerly open the stationmaster ushered Phulboni in. As they stepped in a gust of wind blew the door shut. Suddenly they were enveloped in cobwebbed gloom.

  The room was very small with only the one door and a single shuttered window. In one corner, there stood a dusty desk. Otherwise the room seemed abandoned and unused.

  It was only when Phulboni's eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness that he spotted a string bed, pushed up against the far wall. It was on old charpoy, covered with torn matting. Phulboni went over and gave the mat a slap, raising a cloud of swirling dust. 'Whose is this?' he asked the stationmaster.

  'Oh that's been here for ever,' said the stationmaster' dismissively. 'It belongs to the snakes and rats.' He pushed the door quickly open and stepped out. 'Let us go now, sahib: it will soon be dark.'

  Phulboni cast another glance around the room. This time his eyes fell upon a small alcove in the wall. Standing inside it was a signal lantern. Phulboni went over to take a closer look and was pleasantly surprised to see that the lantern had been recently cleaned and polished. The tin body was gleaming clean and the circle of red glass in the lantern's window shone bright red in the reflected sunlight. Phulboni put out a finger to tap on the glass, but the stationmaster stopped him, hurtling across the room and pushing his hand away.

  'No, no!' he cried. 'Don't do that.'

  Phulboni jumped in surprise, and the stationmaster said vehemently: 'No, no, it's not to be touched.'

  'But don't you touch it?' said Phulboni, even more surprised now. 'Then who cleans it? Who polishes it?'

  The stationmaster dismissed the question with a wave of his hand, muttering something about railway property. 'We should set off now, sahib,' he said trying to steer Phulboni to the door. 'It's getting dark; we have to be quick now.' The writer shrugged and bent down to pick up his bedding-roll. 'No,' he said, throwing it on the charpoy. 'No. I am going to stay here tonight.'

  The stationmaster's mouth fell open and a look of alarm descended on his jovial, slightly doltish face. 'No, no sahib,' he said, his voice rising. 'You can't do that – that cannot happen. It cannot be done.'

  'Why not?' he asked. Dilapidated though it was, the prospect of a night in that room seemed vastly preferable to that of wading through two miles of floodwater.

  'No, no,' the stationmaster cried. 'No: put it out of your mind.' There was a note of panic in his voice and his forehead was beaded with sweat.

  'But I'll be fine here,' said Phulboni.

  'No, sahib, you mustn't stay here,' the stationmaster implored him. 'Come home with me; I won't let you stay here all by yourself.'

  This made up Phulboni's mind. 'I'll be very comfortable here,' he said. 'Don't worry about me.' He set about unstrapping his hold-all before the stationmaster could answer.

  Like all train travellers of the time, Phulboni was wholly prepared for an eventuality such as this: packed in his bedding-roll were a thin mattress, a pillow and several sheets and towels. When he unstrapped it, the bag fell open like a ready-made bed.

  'Look,' he said with a triumphant gesture. 'I'll sleep very well here.'

  'No,' the stationmaster said, tugging ineffectually at his hold-all. 'You can't: it's not safe.'

  'Not safe?' said Phulboni. 'Why? What could happen to me here?'

  'Anything,' said the stationmaster. 'This is not the city, after all. All sorts of things happen in lonely places like this: there are thieves and brigands and dacoits… '

  Phulboni burst out laughing. 'With so much water around,' he said, 'dacoits will need boats to get here. And if they did, this is what they'd have to face.' He tapped his canvas gun-bag.

  'And snakes?' said the stationmaster.

  'I'm not afraid of snakes,' said Phulboni with a smile. 'Where I grew up people used pythons as pillows.'

  The stationmaster cast a despairing glance around the room, at the grimy, belittered desk and the massed cobwebs hanging from the ceiling in sooty honeycombs. 'But what will you eat, sahib?' he said.

  'Since your house is so close,' Phulboni said equably, 'I hope it will not be too much trouble for you to bring me something from your kitchen.'

  The stationmaster sighed. 'All right, sahib,' he said reluctantly. 'Do what you like; but just one thing: don't blame Budhhu Dubey later.'

  'Don't worry,' said Phulboni. He prided himself on his knowledge of village folk, and knew that rural people often had set ideas about certain things. 'If I'm attacked by snakes or dacoits,' he said with a smile, 'I'll be the one to take the blame.'

  The stationmaster left and Phulboni busied himself unpacking his things and settling in. He forced open the shuttered window and left the door swinging wide. Soon, with a little dusting and cleaning, the room began to look much more cheerful.

  Encouraged, Phulboni decided to dust and clean the charpoy too. He pulled the hold-all off the bed and carried the frayed old mat outside and gave it a vigorous shake. A cloud of dust rose out of it, and once it had cleared Phulboni spotted a strangely shaped mark upon the mat; a fading, rust-red stain. He laid the mat on the ground and took a closer look.

  It was an imprint of two large hands, placed next to each other. But there was something puzzling about them, something that did not quite fit. Phulboni had to turn his head this way and that before he worked out what it was: the imprint of the left hand showed four fingers and no thumb.

  There was something just a little eerie and menacing about that strange outline, imprinted on the yellowing rush. He rolled the mat up and put it away, out of sight. He went back in, heaved the hold-all up to the bare strings of the charpoy and made a comfortable bed for himself. Then he put out his nightclothes and laid his shaving things in a neat row on the alcove, beside the signal lantern, in preparation for the morning. Standing back he looked around the room: everything was in order now, but somehow he still had a bad taste in his mouth. He decided to go for a walk.

  It was late afternoon now. The clouds had parted and the sun was shining brightly through the rain-washed skies, touching everything in sight with an iridescent brilliance. Phulboni walked along the tracks, hopping from sleeper to sleeper, watching the parallel rails shoot away towards the horizon, slicing through the flooded, shimmering fields that flanked the tall embankment.

  When he came to the point where the tracks separated he turned to look at the overgrown siding. He noticed fleetingly that the steel point-tongues that joined the siding to the main tracks were stiff and rusty with disuse. Then his eyes fell on a family of egrets that were using the weedcovered rails of the siding as a perch, to hunt from. Captivated, he walked stealthily towards the birds and seated himself on a rail, at a safe distance. A mound of raised earth – possibly once a platform – ran between the parallel rail tracks. The writer sat lounging, with his back against the mound, and spent the better part of an hour watching the egrets as they foraged amongst the frogs that were skimming the surface of the flooded fields below.

  At last, filled with a sense of peace and well-being, he stood up and stretched. He was doubly glad now that he had decided to stay in the signal-room instead of going to the stationmaster's house: this was the kind of place in which solitude was its own reward.

  He got up and walked on, balancing on a rail. It was almost sunset now, and the scudding flat-bottomed clouds above were shot through with streaks of scarlet and magenta. When he came to the points swit
ch that joined the siding and the main line into a single track, Phulboni decided to turn back. He stopped to cast one last glance over the spectacular sight of the flooded fields glowing in the sunset. Inadvertently his eyes fell upon the red handle of the switching lever. He noticed, to his surprise, that the mechanism looked well cared for. There was no trace of rust on the lever and nor were the wires that connected it to the point-rails at all overgrown, even though they ran very close to the ground. On the contrary, the deep grooves in the grass under them suggested regular maintenance and use.

  Phulboni had an instinctive interest in machinery. He liked the feel of cold metal, took pleasure in a good, wellcrafted piece of iron or steel. He crossed the rails and went over to cast an appreciative eye at the gleaming iron lever: it gave him an obscure sense of satisfaction to see a wellcared for piece of machinery in these unlikely surroundings.

  As he leaned over, arm extended, he heard a shout. Straightening up, he saw the stationmaster struggling up the embankment. He was waving frantically, making signs to Phulboni to step back from the switching lever. He had a cloth bundle in one hand and an earthen pitcher in the other. Phulboni realized suddenly that he was ravenously hungry. He waved and went hurrying back along the tracks.

  The stationmaster was waiting for him a hundred yards down the track. He had an angry frown on his forehead. 'Look,' he said to the writer. 'You may be a big sahib and all that but if you know what's good for you, you won't meddle with anything around here.'

  He added, as an afterthought: 'This is government property, it belongs to the railways.'

  Phulboni had been intending to compliment the stationmaster on his maintenance of the station's switching gear. He listened now in abashed silence, unable to think of an appropriate response.