Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories Read online

  Leela, during her lonely evenings, would often ask me to sit on her verandah and talk to her. The day’s work done, she would relax with a hookah. Smoking a hookah was a habit she had brought with her from her village near Agra, and it was a habit she refused to give up. She liked to talk; and, as I was a good listener, she soon grew fond of me. The fact that I was twenty-six years old, and still a bachelor, never failed to astonish her.

  It was not long before she took upon herself the responsibility for getting me married. I found it useless to protest. She did not believe me when I told her that I could not afford to marry, that I preferred a bachelor’s life. A wife, she insisted, was an asset to any man. A wife reduced expenses. Where did I eat? At a hotel, of course. That must cost me at least sixty rupees a month, even on a vegetarian diet. But if I had a simple, homely wife to do the cooking, we could both eat well for less than that.

  Leela fingered my shirt, observing that a button was missing and that the collar was frayed. She remarked on my pale face and general look of debility; and told me that I would fall victim to all kinds of diseases if I did not find someone to look after me. What I needed, she declared betweeen puffs at the hookah, was a woman — a young, healthy, buxom woman, preferably from a village near Agra.

  ‘If I could find someone like you,’ I said slyly, ‘I would not mind getting married.’

  She appeared neither flattered nor offended by my remark. ‘Don’t marry an older woman,’ she advised. ‘Never take a wife who is more experienced in the ways of the world than you are. You just leave it to me, I’ll find a suitable bride for you.’

  To please Leela, I agreed to this arrangement, thinking she would not take it seriously. But, two days later, when she suggested that I accompany her to a certain distinguished home for orphan girls, I became alarmed. I refused to have anything to do with her project.

  ‘Don’t you have confidence in me?’ she asked. ‘You said you would like a girl who resembled me. I know one who looks just as I did ten years ago.’

  ‘I like you as you are now,’ I said. ‘Not as you were ten years ago.’ ‘Of course. We shall arrange for you to see the girl first.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I protested. ‘It’s not that I feel I have to be in love with someone before marrying her — I know you would choose a fine girl, and I would really prefer someone who is homely and simple to an M.A. with Honours in Psychology — it’s just that I’m not ready for it. I want another year or two of freedom. I don’t want to be chained down. To be frank, I don’t want the responsibility.’

  ‘A little responsibility will make a man of you,’ said Leela; but she did not insist on my accompanying her to the orphanage, and the matter was allowed to rest for a few days.

  I was beginning to hope that Leela had reconciled herself to allowing one man to remain single in a world full of husbands when, one morning, she accosted me on the verandah with an open newspaper, which she thrust in front of my nose.

  ‘There!’ she said triumphantly. ‘What do you think of that? I did it to surprise you.’

  She had certainly succeeded in surprising me. Her henna-stained forefinger rested on an advertisement in the matrimonial columns.

  Bachelor journalist, age 25, seeks attractive young wife well- versed in household duties. Caste, religion no bar. Dowry optional.

  I must admit that Leela had made a good job, of it. In a few days the replies began to come in, usually from the parents of the girls concerned. Each applicant wanted to know how much money I was earning. At the same time, they took the trouble to list their own connections and the high positions occupied by relatives. Some parents enclosed their daughters’ photographs. They were very good photographs, though there had been a certain amount of touching-up.

  I studied the pictures with interest. Perhaps marriage wasn’t such a bad proposition, after all. I selected the photographs of the three girls I most fancied and showed them to Leela.

  To my surprise, she disapproved of all three. One of the girls she said, had a face like a hermaphrodite; another obviously suffered from tuberculosis; and the third was undoubtedly an adventuress. Leela decided that the whole idea of the advertisement had been a mistake. She was sorry she had inserted it; the only replies we were likely to get would be from fortune-hunters. And I had no fortune.

  So we destroyed the letters. I tried to keep some of the photo- graphs, but Leela tore them up too.

  And so, for some time, there were no more attempts at getting me married.

  Leela and I met nearly every day, but we spoke of other things. Sometimes, in the evenings, she would make me sit on the charpoy opposite her, and then she would draw up her hookah and tell me stories about her village and her family. I was getting used to the boy, too, and even growing rather fond of him.

  All this came to an end when Leela’s husband went and got himself killed. He was shot by a bootlegger who had decided to get rid of the Excise man rather than pay him an exorbitant sum of money. It meant that Leela had to give up her quarters and return to her village near Agra. She waited until the boy’s school-term had finished, and then she packed their things and bought two tickets, third-class to Agra.

  Something, I could see, had been troubling her, and when I saw her off at the station I realised what it was. She was having fit of conscience about my continued bachelorhood.

  ‘In my village,’ she said confidently, leaning out from the carriage window, ‘there is a very comely young girl, a distant relative of mine, I shall speak to the parents.’

  And then I said something which I had not considered before: which had never, until that moment, entered my head. And I was no less surprised than Leela when the words came tumbling out of my mouth: ‘Why don’t you marry me now?’

  Arun didn’t have time to finish his story because, just as this interesting stage, the dinner arrived.

  But the dinner brought with it the end of his story.

  It was served by his wife, a magnificent woman, strong and handsome, who could only have been Leela. And a few minutes later, Chandu, Arun’s stepson, charged into the house, complaining that he was famished.

  Arun introduced me to his wife, and we exchanged the usual formalities.

  ‘But why hasn’t your friend brought his family with him?’ she asked.

  ‘Family? Because he’s still a bachelor!’

  And then as he watched his wife’s expression change from a look of mild indifference to one of deep concern, he hurriedly changed the subject.

  The Night Train at Deoli

  When I was at college I used to spend my summer vacations in Dehra, at my grandmother’s place. I would leave the plains early in May and return late in July. Deoli was a small station about thirty miles from Dehra; it marked the beginning of the heavy jungles of the Indian Terai.

  The train would reach Deoli at about five in the morning, when the station would be dimly lit with electric bulbs and oil-lamps, and the jungle across the railway tracks would just be visible in the faint light of dawn. Deoli had only lone platform, an office for the stationmaster and a waiting room. The platform boasted a tea stall, a fruit vendor, and a few stray dogs; not much else, because the train stopped there for only ten minutes before rushing on into the forests.

  Why it stopped at Deoli. I don’t know. Nothing ever happened there. Nobody got off the train and nobody got in. There were never any coolies on the platform. But the train would halt there a full ten minutes, and then a bell would sound, the guard would blow his whistle, and presently Deoli would be left behind and forgotten.

  I used to wonder what happened in Deoli, behind the station walls. I always felt sorry for that lonely little platform, and for the place that nobody wanted to visit. I decided that one day I would get off the train at Deoli, and spend the day there, just to please the town.

  I was eighteen, visiting my grandmother, and the night train stopped at Deoli. A girl came down the platform, selling baskets.

  It was a cold morning and the gi
rl had a shawl thrown across her shoulders. Her feet were bare and her clothes were old, but she was a young girl, walking gracefully and with dignity.

  When she came to my window, she stopped. She saw that I was looking at her intently, but at first she pretended not to notice. She had a pale skin, set off by shiny black hair, and dark, troubled eyes. And then those eyes, searching and eloquent, met mine.

  She stood by my window for some time and neither of us said anything. But when she moved on, I found myself leaving my seat and going to the carriage door, and stood waiting on the platform, looking the other way. I walked across to the tea stall. A kettle was boiling over on a small fire, but the owner of the stall was busy serving tea somewhere on the train. The girl followed me behind the stall.

  ‘Do you want to buy a basket?’ she asked. ‘They are very strong, made of the finest cane . . .’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t want a basket.’

  We stood looking at each other for what seemed a very long time, and she said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want a basket?’

  ‘All right, give me one,’ I said, and I took the one on top and gave her a rupee, hardly daring to touch her fingers.

  As she was about to speak, the guard blew his whistle; she said something, but it was lost in the clanging of the bell and the hissing of the engine. I had to run back to my compartment. The carriage shuddered and jolted forward.

  I watched her as the platform slipped away. She was alone on the platform and she did not move, but she was looking at me and smiling. I watched her until the signal-box came in the way, and then the jungle hid the station, but I could still see her standing there alone . . .

  I sat up awake for the rest of the journey. I could not rid my mind of the picture of the girl’s face and her dark, smouldering eyes.

  But when I reached Dehra the incident became blurred and dis- tant, for there were other things to occupy my mind. It was only when I was making the return journey, two months later, that I remembered the girl.

  I was looking out for her as the train drew into the station, and I felt an unexpected thrill when I saw her walking up the platform. I sprang off the foot-board and waved to her.

  When she saw me, she smiled. She was pleased that I remem- bered her. I was pleased that, she remembered me. We were both pleased, and it was almost like a meeting of old friends.

  She did not go down the length of the train selling baskets, but came straight to the tea stall; her dark eyes were suddenly filled with light. We said nothing for some time but we couldn’t have been more eloquent.

  I felt the impulse to put her on the train there and then, and take her away with me; I could not bear the thought of having to watch her recede into the distance of Deoli station. I took the baskets from her hand and put them down on the ground. She put out her hand for one of them, but I caught her hand and held it.

  ‘I have to go to Delhi,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘I do not have to go anywhere.’

  The guard blew his whistle for the train to leave and how I hated the guard for doing that.

  ‘I will come again,’ I said. ‘Will you be here?’

  She nodded again, and, as she nodded, the bell clanged and the train slid forward. I had to wrench my hand away from the girl and run for the moving train.

  This time I did not forget her. She was with me for the remainder of the journey, and for long after. All that year she was a bright, living thing. And when the college term finished I packed in haste and left for Dehra earlier than usual. My grandmother would be pleased at my eagerness to see her.

  I was nervous and anxious as the train drew into Deoli, because I was wondering what I should say to the girl and what I should do. I was determined that I wouldn’t stand helplessly before her, hardly able to speak or do anything about my feelings.

  The train came to Deoli, and I looked up and down the platform, but I could not see the girl anywhere.

  I opened the door and stepped off the footboard. I was deeply disappointed, and overcome by a sense of foreboding. I felt I had to do something, and so I ran up to the station-master and said, ‘Do you know the girl who used to sell baskets here?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said the station-master. ‘And you’d better get on the train if you don’t want to be left behind.’

  But I paced up and down the platform, and stared over the rail- ings at the station yard; all I saw was a mango tree and a dusty road leading into the jungle. Where did the road go? The train was mov- ing out of the station, and I had to run up the platform and jump for the door of my compartment. Then, as the train gathered speed and rushed through the forests, I sat brooding in front of the window.

  What could I do about finding a girl I had seen only twice, who had hardly spoken to me, and about whom I knew nothing — absolutely nothing — but for whom I felt a tenderness and respon- sibility that I had never felt before?

  My grandmother was not pleased with my visit after all, because I didn’t stay at her place more than a couple of weeks. I felt restless and ill-at-ease. So I took the train back to the plains, meaning to ask further questions of the station-master at Deoli.

  But at Deoli there was a new station-master. The previous man had been transferred to another post within the past week. The new man didn’t know anything about the girl who sold baskets. I found the owner of the tea stall, a small, shrivelled-up man, wearing greasy clothes, and asked him if he knew anything about the girl with the baskets.

  ‘Yes, there was such a girl here, I remember quite well,’ he said. ‘But she has stopped coming now.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said the man. ‘She was nothing to me.’ And once again I had to run for the train.

  As Deoli platform receded, I decided that one day I would have to break journey there, spend a day in the town, make enquiries, and find the girl who had stolen my heart with nothing but a look from her dark, impatient eyes.

  With this thought I consoled myself throughout my last term in college. I went to Dehra again in the summer and when, in the early hours of the morning, the night train drew into Deoli station, I looked up and down the platform for signs of the girl, knowing, I wouldn’t find her but hoping just the same.

  Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to break journey at Deoli and spend a day there. (If it was all fiction or a film, I reflected, I would have got down and cleaned up the mystery and reached a suitable ending for the whole thing). I think I was afraid to do this. I was afraid of discovering what really happened to the girl. Perhaps she was no longer in Deoli, perhaps she was married, perhaps she had fallen ill . . .

  In the last few years I have passed through Deoli many times, and I always look out of the carriage window, half expecting to see the same unchanged face smiling up at me. I wonder what happens in Deoli, behind the station walls. But I will never break my journey there. It may spoil my game. I prefer to keep hoping and dreaming, and looking out of the window up and down that lonely platform, waiting for the girl with the baskets.

  I never break my journey at Deoli, but I pass through as often as I can.

  Bus Stop, Pipalnagar

  My balcony was my window on the world.

  The room itself had only one window, a square hole in the wall crossed by two iron bars. The view from it was rather restricted. If I craned my neck sideways, and put my nose to the bars, I could see the end of the building. Below was a narrow courtyard where child- ren played. Across the courtyard, on a level with my room, were three separate windows, belonging to three separate rooms, each window barred in the same way, with iron bars. During the day it was difficult to see into these rooms. The harsh, cruel sunlight filled the courtyard, making the windows patches of darkness.

  My room was very small. I had paced about in it so often that I knew its exact measurements. My foot, from heel to toe, was eleven inches long. That made the room just over fifteen feet in length; for, when I measured the last foot, my toes t
urned up against the wall. It wasn’t more than eight feet broad which meant that two people were the most it could comfortably accommodate. I was the only tenant but at times I had put up at least three friends — two on the floor, two on the bed. The plaster had been peeling off the walls and in addition the greasy stains and patches were difficult to hide, though I covered the worst ones with pictures cut out from maga- zines — Waheeda, the Indian actress, successfully blotted out one big patch and a recent Mr. Universe displayed his muscles from the opposite wall. The biggest stain was all but concealed by a calendar which showed Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, whose blessings were vital to all good beginnings.

  My belongings were few. A shelf on the wall supported an untidy pile of paperbacks, and a small table in one corner of the room supported the solid weight of my rejected manuscripts and an ancient typewriter which I had obtained on hire.

  I

  I was eighteen years old and a writer.

  Such a combination would be disastrous enough anywhere but in India it was doubly so; for there were not many papers to write for and payments were small. In addition, I was very inexperienced and thought what I wrote came from the heart, only a fraction touched the hearts of editors. Nevertheless, I persevered and was able to earn about a hundred rupees a month, barely enough to keep body, soul and typewriter together. There wasn’t much else I could do. Without that passport to a job — a University degree — I had no alternative but to accept the classification of ‘self-employed’ — which was impressive as it included doctors, lawyers, property dealers, and grain merchants, most of whom earned well over a thousand a month.

  ‘Haven’t you realized that India is bursting with young people trying to pass exams?’ asked a journalist friend. ‘It’s a desperate matter, this race for academic qualifications. Everyone wants to pass his exam the easy way, without reading too many books or attend- ing more than half-a-dozen lectures. That’s where a smart fellow like you comes in! Why should students wade through five volumes of political history when they can buy a few model-answer papers at any bookstall? They are helpful, these guess-papers. You can write them quickly and flood the market. They’ll sell like hot cakes!’