IDENTITY CARD
THE job was specially created for him; he was appointed Shipments Supervisor for the Kerwad Construction Company in Bombay, with responsibility for speeding up the unloading and onward despatch of steel and machinery sent out from England for use on the Company's projects. Shipping schedules had been disrupted by the war and movements of ships were kept secret. Until a ship was actually sighted, its arrival was uncertain. There was also an acute shortage of railway wagons, and even though the company had high priority, someone had to be on the spot to ensure there were no hold-ups.
The pay was four hundred rupees a month. It suited Gian to be in Bombay, where he was unknown, and the work kept him busy.
He liked the bustle of the harbour and the anonymity of being a man in a crowd. Above all, he now possessed an identity card, entitling him to enter the docks.
His name, according to the new card, was Gian Joshi. It was like leaving half your past behind, Gian thought, for he was Gian still; but not Gian Talwar from Konshet village, but Gian Joshi, with a job and a bank account and a small, two-roomed flat just outside the Yellow Gate.
At the moment, he wanted nothing more from life. He was secure, sheltered, free; leading the humdrum, perfectly normal life that he had longed for; just one of fifty thousand men working in the docks, one of a thousand other Joshis. He had discarded the Andaman chain, the caste-mark of the convict, as he had discarded his brahmin's janwa; now he carried an identity card.
He loved crowds, as though compensating himself for the loneliness of convict life. In the evenings, he went for long walks along Marine Drive, ending up at Chowpatty, savouring the smells and sights, the heady welter of humanity. Only at night, in the loneliness of his room did he sometimes feel oppressed and debased. Some day he would have to leave all this and become wholly free, disengage himself completely not only from his past but from his humiliating obligations to Debi-dayal's family. But the practical difficulties were forbidding. This was a time for a faceless anonymity, a time for waiting, like a tortoise going into a hole for the summer, to lie for months, hibernating.
Oddly enough, unlike when in the Andamans, he was not disturbed by thoughts of women. The only woman who now existed for him was Sundari, someone wholly out of reach, already married. He had carried her photographs with him for over a year, almost like a talisman. At times, he wondered if he was in love with her. He would drop off to sleep, exhausted by his work and his walk, his last waking thoughts of her. And yet, how could he be in love with someone he had only seen twice, love her from afar, like someone in a Victorian novel? Did the loneliness of a condemned man, abetted by a couple of photo- graphs, add up to love?
The fifty-ton crane was coming down, smoothly even if noisily, with ponderous gravity. Its looped chains held a long, swaying girder. Gian watched it, fascinated, marvelling at its precision, knowing that the cradle would descend exactly where the other girders lay, that the girder would be deposited within inches of the others, in the correct position for being loaded into wagons.
Someone touched his sleeve. A year ago, he would have started with fright. Now he merely glanced at the man who was trying to tell him something, his voice drowned by the clamour of the dockside. He was already a new man, filling out his new personality with ease and assurance. What is it?' he yelled.
'A lady is waiting to see you, Mr. Joshi. At the end of the yard, near the oil tanks."
'A lady! To see me? Are you sure?"
He nodded. 'She gave your name."
Even as he walked towards the oil tanks, he was sure there was some mistake. Then he saw her, standing in the shade of one of the Alexandra warehouses, fresh as paint against the dirt- smeared oil tanks, wearing a pale blue sari which was so pale that the blue showed only in the folds of the material.
It was Sundari.
He experienced a surge of resentment. It was wrong of her to be there, introducing an unwanted complication in his new life and opening up old scars. He could feel his new self shrinking, becoming conscious of an older self that had been contaminated.
You look as though you are seeing someone you detest," Sundari said.
No, of course not,' he said guiltily. "It is just that I was seeing to the unloading of the beams... I wasn't expecting anyone."
"That is exactly what I came to see you about. Abaji rang up. He is worried about something called Craddock girders and wants me to ring back and tell him when they might be expected.'
He felt instantly relieved. "Tell him not to worry. I have already written to the office. The ship only came in last night. They will get there in six days-seven at the most. The last lot is being unloaded now. That is just what I was supervising.'
Do you have to be there when they are unloaded?"
'Well, unless they are all stacked in one lot, there's no end of trouble when it comes to loading them on to wagons. They also have to be in the correct position so that they don't have to be turned round when they get there."
'He will be so pleased. Can't we go and stand where you can still see to your work and talk there? I have never seen a ship unloading.
She had given her message, and he had given her the assurance that the beams would be despatched on time. What else was there to talk about? 'Of course, he shrugged his shoulders. 'If you don't mind the racket.'
They went back to where he had been standing, on the greasy dock between the curving black side of a liberty ship and a high wall of cement sacks and tar barrels. The smells of a great port, the bustle of humanity, the noises of scores of derricks, winches, cranes and donkey engines surrounded them. They stood side by side, the man in his soot-stained overalls who was a part of the background, the slim girl in blue and white, freshly perfumed, the outsider.
Are those the Craddock girders?" she asked.
" 'Can't hear you,' he yelled, shaking his head. "You have to shout!"
She repeated the question, shouting out the words, and inevitably they began to laugh. Sundari wanted to know all sorts of things about how ships were unloaded.
It was nearly eleven before the last girder was down. He hesitated before he said: "Do you think we could go and have a cool drink somewhere, or a cup of tea?" He had to repeat the question because she did not hear him the first time, and somehow that made the question sound even more awkward to him.
I would love to. I am quite hoarse, yelling at you,' she told him.
'I'll get a taxi,' he offered.
'I have a car outside."
They threaded their way out of the clutter of dockside goods, to the high wall of the Customs warehouse beyond which her two-seater Ford stood in the parking lot.
That's where I live,' he pointed as, in the car, they waited for the gate of Yellow Docks to open. You mean there? In the old brick building?" she asked.
He was instantly ashamed of himself. The house was a mean, three-storied building coloured an unrelieved mustard, next to the railway track, and it had an outdoor staircase. The outdoor communal latrines, one to each floor, had their doors open. Pretty squalid, isn't it?' he said.
"Oh, I didn't mean that, but... but surely, is it really neces sary for you to live in a house like that? The noise for instance!"
I like the noise,' he told her. 'I know what you are thinking. That I could easily find a couple of rooms somewhere nicer. don't know. I have to save as much money as possible so that...
'So that what?"
'So that I can leave the job whenever I wish to... to be free again. Not to be under an obligation to anyone." But you are not obliged to anyone. You have to put in hard work. And look at what you offered to do for Debi."" The little train with its flat cars puffed by, its engine belching smoke against the yellow house. The hamals ran and pulled the gates open. The dammed-up stream of traffic began to move again. 'Where do you want to go?" she asked, throwing the car into gear.
'I've no idea,' he said. 'I mean, I don't know where a man can take a girl like you for a cup of tea simply because I have never taken a girl like you out-or any other girl for that matter. And also.. And also what?' she arched her eyebrows.
'And also we'll have to find a place where they won't chuck me out. Look at my clothes!"
Why, you look very nice in them; handsome! And just for that, we shall go to the Taj. I've promised to meet someone there and no one cares how anyone is dressed."
It was quite true. The ground-floor tea room was quite full, but no one took the slightest notice of his clothes. The waiters hovered over them just as solicitously as though he had been wearing the linen-shirt-slacks-and-sandals that had become the uniform of Bombay's elite. They sat over cold lemonades and talked.
I have been meaning to ask you,' she said. "Why were you so anxious not to be recognized, when you came to the house to see Abaji?
He had been thinking what to say if she asked him to explain, and had decided to tell her the truth. "You see, it was important for me to find a job; find someone who would take me on without having the police check my record. Under the wartime ordinances, no one can be employed unless the police have verified his records. I wanted to establish my bona fides with your father before revealing who I was. If he'd found out about my past before I was able to tell him that I had offered to help Debí-dayal to escape, he would quite likely have sent me away. 'It doesn't sound very plausible to me,' she said, but he was glad to see the smile on her face.
No
She shook her head. 'Not when you wanted to tell him who you were, anyway."
He laughed. 'It was just a question of timing. I had planned it most carefully; exactly how I was going to tell him. Seeing you there was something I had not bargained for. It was... it was quite upsetting."
"Tell me; was all that you said about your asking Debi to escape with you quite true?"
He found it easy to be frank with her. 'Partly,' he said. "The essentials were all true. I did ask him to make the attempt with us. He refused to do so."
"Yes, he is very bitter,' she said. 'I can understand that he had no wish to come back."
And I must thank you for not letting me down,' he said. "If you had said you had met me before, it might have made things most awkward."
She said nothing for a few seconds. Then she asked: 'What do you do with your evenings? I doubt if you have any friends here."
I have no friends-not a single one. I go for walks, most evenings, to Chowpatty. Then I eat somewhere."
And then?
Then I go back to my room. I know what you must be thinking, but that is how I like it. It is so much better than what I have been used to."
Would you like to come and see me some time? It might be a bit of a change. We could talk about Debi; there are so many things I want to ask you. You see, I was the only person he was really close to; I would do anything for him; really anything. It was so comforting to know that someone like you was there with him, a friend.'
His fingers around the glass were white at the edges, and he relaxed his grip. What would she think of him if she knew; found out that he had prevented her brother from escaping, had been the cause of his being flogged? Out at sea, through the arch of the Gateway of India, he could see a battle cruiser with patches of camouflage paint, surrounded by half a dozen smaller ships; their masts looked strangely like the flogging frames of the Cellular Jail. "When would you like to come?" she was saying. "I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know what your father would think." 'I don't see how that matters. Abaji's just an old woman, always so fussy about wanting to do the right thing."
Also, I am sure Mr. Chandidar would not approve-if he were to know who I am."
'He doesn't."
Most people are fussy when it comes to an escaped convict visiting their houses."
It was almost pathological how he could not get away from his convict's past, and he wondered if that was what she was smiling about.
As it happens,' she said, 'my husband is away with his regiment, in Egypt. But even if he were here, it would have made no difference. You see, my husband and I never try to keep each other away from our friends-we both agree we mustn't drop our old friends just because we are married."
Friend? he asked himself. The flogging frame with its leather fittings for the neck and arms and ankles was still before his mind, a barrier to friendship; that and the crack of the blue-black whipping cane as it came down to hit the body, making it twitch like a wounded snake. It was important to say something, something innocuous, to drag his mind to the present and prevent himself from making a false move.
'It is nice to hear that,' he said. "Yours must be the sort of happy marriage one reads about in books."
She remained silent for a while. Then she said, "Yes, it is, rather like something one reads about in books."
She looked sad, he thought, sad and lovely, so that he wanted to go on looking at her. "To me, you and your family are people one reads about in books,' he said. 'I never thought that you would remember me."
'But of course, I do!' she protested. 'So elegant in your bathing trunks; and then you were so painfully shy about the janwa, and went off in a huff, showing off your crawl. And when you came back, you'd thrown the thing away and wouldn't speak to anyone. You were ever such a serious-minded young man."
It was nice to be remembered; he savoured the delicious feeling of a bygone triumph, however slight. Ah, there's the Prince,' she said, waving her hand. "
He watched the fat man who had appeared in the doorway turn his dark glasses in her direction and wave back. He wore a cream bush shirt and beige linen slacks and white sandals,
"The Maharaja of Pusheli,' she explained, as the Prince came waddling up to their table, bringing with him a wave of some strong perfume.
'My dear girll the Prince exclaimed, in a piping, almost girlish voice. And to think I have been whiling away my time knowing that you'd keep me waiting.' He held her proffered hand and kissed it and then beckoned to a waiter to bring an extra chair.
'Mr. Joshi, Sundari introduced Gian. The Maharaja of Pusheli.
'How do you do,' the Prince said, barely turning to look and putting out a soft hand. 'My dear, it's not twelve already, is it?" No, Sundari said. 'Mr. Joshi wanted me to have a drink.
"I sent away the car, remembering that you had offered to drive me over. Shall we go, they must be waiting." He rose to his feet.
"Do come some time, Sundari said to Gian. 'Just telephone and say you are coming. The name is in the book." The Prince solicitously pulled her chair from behind her as she rose. "Would you like me to take you back to the docks?' Sundari asked Gian.
'No, thank you, I'll find a taxi.
He watched them go; the slim, delicate girl and the fat, uncouth Prince. The perfume he wore still seemed to hang in the air. He noticed that her white chaplis bore a smear from the sludge of the dockside. In a way, the Prince had seemed even more out of place in her company than himself. She had come on a mission and had been polite to one of her father's employees.. Now she was going off to a party, accompanied by a Maharaja, unaware that her chaplis had been soiled by contact with his kind of life.
The Prince had taken her arm as though guiding her through a crowded street, and in the doorway, he must have told her something funny because they both stopped and laughed.
She wanted him to visit her so that she could talk to him about her brother. He had no wish to talk about Debi-dayal; he did not want to go to her house. Old friend, she had called him. What was the Prince? Was he too an old friend?
He paid the bill and rose to his feet. He walked out of the tea room, carefully keeping his eyes turned away from the cruiser out at sea. The little red Ford two-seater in which he had come was speeding past the Gateway of India.
Sundari's visit had left a mark on his colourless existence. Her talk, artless and gay, her easy laughter, her familiarity with the Maharaja, her casual invitation to visit her house, had sparked a new desire within him. He was tormented by a longing for her company, and was guiltily aware that the longing bore strong overtones of sensuality.
For a whole week, he had tried to fight it off, knowing that it was unworthy of his love for her. But the new hunger within him had made him restless, prodded him on: why should be hold back from what might turn out to be a delightful experience just because of a suburban conscience? People like the Prince certainly did not suffer from such qualms; they usually got all the fun they wanted out of life.
And he had given in; he had dialled her number and asked to speak to her. Even as he waited for her to come to the telephone, he was aware that he was facing a turning point in his life.
On the following Sunday, he went to Juhu by train and taxi. He had bought himself a bush-shirt and linen slacks almost exactly like the Maharaja of Pusheli's and he wore dark glasses and white sandals. He felt gay and debonair, a young man in search of romance; in tune with the glorious early winter afternoon.
Sundari looked genuinely pleased to see him. Over tea, served on the back verandah overlooking the beach, they chatted pleasantly about Duriabad and about his days in the Andamans, almost as though they really were old friends. For him the promise of the afternoon had already come true. It was an exhilarating experience to be sitting alone with a girl like Sundari, good- looking, sophisticated, making small talk with the waves and tall palms murmuring in the background. Wonderful day for a swim, Gian commented idly.
"Oh, what a pity you didn't suggest it when you rang up, Sundari said, glancing at her watch. I would have loved to spend the evening on the beach. It is just that the Maharaja will be here any minute too late to put him off. He can't bear the sun, or any form of outdoor exercise. Unfortunately, Sunday happens to be the day of his weekly party, and he gets really upset when anyone drops out."
It was just a thought,' he assured her, 'brought on by all those palm trees and the sand.'
'We'll go swimming next time, I promise. When can you come? I'm afraid only on a Sunday."
'Come next Sunday, then. Bring your swimming things. We'll spend the evening on the beach, and then you stay on to dinner shall I ask some people... no, perhaps not." What about... what about the Maharaja's Sunday party?
I'll tell His Highness I can't come. His parties bore me to death and all his women friends seem to detest me."
He went to Juhu again on the following Sunday, and they spent the evening on the beach. They lay under the palms, sipping beer and ginger-beer shandies and smoking, abandoning themselves to the warmth of the sand and the caress of the breeze. It was long after sunset when they came back to the house for a shower and change. And after that, they sprawled in cool cane chairs in the verandah, listening to gramophone records, hardly saying a word to each other.
Gian experienced a sense of contentment he had not imagined possible; like a dog slumbering before a fire, he told himself; a stray dog discovering the blessings of a home. And yet he was careful not to linger too long. As he walked the dark, deserted road to the station, he was pleased with himself that the evening had ended as it had; he had not done or said anything to make him feel ashamed of himself. In retrospect, the way in which they had spent their day was much more rewarding than if he had tried to make love to her..
He went to Juhu again a few weeks later, and after that, almost every other Sunday. The pattern had remained the same, even if they were aware that they were drifting closer and closer to each other with the inevitability of the tide coming over the sand. It was almost as though they were waiting for the tide to catch them up, rather than walking into the waves on their own, deliberately holding back so as to savour the full flavour of an experience that was new to both of them.
CHALO-DELHI!
He was going to be sent to India. At one time, it had looked doubtful, as though they had begun to have second thoughts about him. Now he had been told he was going. He wondered what had made them change their minds.
The room in Rangoon's West End Hotel was straight out of Maugham's cast; high-ceilinged, cool, spacious; the open doors and windows draped with bamboo blinds to keep out the glare, the furniture heavy and solid; 'Made in the East to British specifications', everything seemed to shriek.
But the British themselves had left, almost casually, like tenants vacating a house. They had never had any stake in the house itself. On the other hand, even in their hurry, they had actually made efforts to destroy whatever they had laboured to build all the vaunted gifts of their occupation-not caring how the people of the land itself would live after they had gone. But, like everything else, even their efforts at a scorched-earth policy had been clumsy and amateurish. True, the oil refinery had been totally gutted, but the Rangoon docks were already in use, and the electric power station was functioning normally. The fan in the hotel room revolved at maximum speed.
The contact with the Japanese had been something of a disillusion; at times he had even thought of making his own bid for escape. But in the countries they occupied, there was nowhere an Indian could hope to go into hiding. Nor had there been any opportunity. He was never left unguarded; at all times, a Japanese sentry was somewhere close by; a soldier was standing at the head of the stairs now.
And yet, could he not have got away if he had really wanted to, he reproached himself, as Patrick Mulligan had got away?
Mulligan's escape had caused quite a stir in the Andamans. At first the Japanese had stoutly denied that he had run away, and then, almost naively, Yamaki had come out and announced a reward for anyone giving information that might lead to his re-capture.
Mulligan had been their prize catch. Instead of putting him to death as everyone had expected, they had done their best to make him lose 'face' by putting him to work as a manual labourer, a coolie. Whenever the gangs of freed convicts were marched off to the site of the airfield that was being constructed, they had to pass through the main bazaar so that the people could see for themselves how the once-proud, swaggering, super-sahib had been humbled; hobbling along without shoes in the long line of coolies, his head hung low, his face haggard, his skin falling in folds like that of an aged elephant.
And then they had heard that while working on the runway that was being cut through the hills, Mulligan had strayed away and made a dash for the jungle and escaped, risking the fire of the sentries who had opened up with their tommy-guns as soon as they realized what he was up to.
It was difficult not to feel a grudging admiration for Patrick Mulligan who had managed to come out the victor in the oriental game of 'face', preferring torture and death at the hands of the Jaoras to Japanese captivity, but somehow it was even more difficult to think of someone as tough and plucky as Mulligan letting himself be killed by the Jaoras either.
Debi-dayal wondered what had happened to Mulligan; Mulligan who had escaped while he, Debi-dayal had stayed back as the esteemed guest of the victors.
Even from his position of privilege, he found them uneasy companions. They were ruthless, overbearing, and cruel-far more cruel than the British could ever be; he had no doubt about that. He had been befriended by them, given special food and comfortable rooms, treated with a kind of stiff, oriental cere- moniousness. But it was difficult to reconcile their flagrant disregard for the other prisoners in the Andamans, or for the unfortunate Burmese citizens here in Rangoon, with their scraping and bowing, their toothy smiles, their excessive courtesy. He had seen coolies mercilessly flogged for minor misdemeanours, by strutting, jack-booted soldiers; respectable men and women press-ganged into a sweeper corps to clean the city's streets; he had been horrified by the callousness, glee, almost, with which they bayoneted their prisoners, and had squirmed at the tortures they inflicted on anyone they suspected of working against their interests. Mulligan's dog, which had dared to bite one of the soldiers, had had its front paws chopped off; at this time it was quite usual to see cattle with great chunks of meat hacked out of their sides because some soldiers could use a few pounds of fresh beef, but still wanted the animals kept alive for future use. He had almost fainted with shock when he had first come across one of those bullocks.
The British were kind to animals; kinder than they were to human beings; one had to concede the fact even if one hated them; but that did not necessarily make them preferable to the Japanese. For one thing, their military performance had so far been anything but creditable. Wherever they had come up against the Japanese, they had been routed. More often they had pre- ferred to withdraw, without even offering a fight, so that even their staunch supporters had turned against them.
The short, balding Indian who had come to see him, mopped the sweat from his brow. He wore a crumpled uniform too tight for him, with the badges of rank of a Japanese Brigadier.
'We must consider it a privilege a great honour,' he said.
To be fighting side by side with them. They are our saviours. They will liberate our motherland.' He uncrossed his bulging legs and loosened the belt of his trousers. 'Don't you agree? Debi-dayal did not know if it was a trap to get him to speak out his mind about the Japanese. But his visitor appeared not to expect an answer. 'Look at me,' he went on. I was an officer under the British, in the Indian army, a Captain. We were sent all the way to Malaya " What were you, infantry?' Debi-dayal asked.
'No, the supply corps.'
"Ah, I see."
'As I was saying, we were sent to Malaya, just to save a part of the British Empire... just think of that! All the way to Malaya, away from our country, our wives and children... for what? To save Malaya for the British. And what happened?' He rolled up his handkerchief and wiped the beads of perspiration from the back of his hands.
"What happened?' Debi-dayal asked. "We were routed. Killed like flies, surrounded, caught up.
Those lucky enough to escape were made prisoners by the Japanese. But we are prisoners no more. Now they have organized us into an army of liberation eighty thousand strong. All trained soldiers, formed into battalions and brigades and other units, with our own equipment. And look at me,' he tapped his chest. Look at me: a Brigadier, at thirty-a Brigadier. The British had never made an Indian a Brigadier yet. Not one has gone beyond the rank of Major. Just look at the difference!" Now, who did he remind him of? The talk was something like Shafi's; the same earnestness, the same zeal. But Shafi was hard, openly contemptuous of men like the Brigadier. No, he reminded him of someone else.
"What happens when you run into your own brethren?" Debi-dayal asked. "Those who are still in the Indian army. Will you oppose them?
'But of course! It is the duty of all patriots, of all those who love the motherland, to put down every obstacle that stands in the way of liberation. For the sake of our beloved country, we must be prepared not only to fight the men from India, but if need be, our own fathers and mothers. "Chalo-Delhi!" That is our war cry; "Destination Delhi!" Anyone who stands between us and Delhi must be destroyed.' A drop of sweat gathered on his forehead and ran down his nose. He mopped it up expertly before it could fall.
The line of talk was straight out of Radio Tokyo, Yamaki had said the very same things. This man even talked like Yamaki; at any moment now he would bare his teeth and hiss.
No, he wasn't like Yamaki either, Debi-dayal decided. He was soft and fat and dripping with perspiration. Yamaki was hard as wood, alert, a soldier to his fingertips. And this man was too much wrapped up in being promoted Brigadier at thirty to make a good soldier. He could not help thinking that only a few weeks earlier, the Brigadier had been on the side of the British, currying favour and mouthing the same platitudes. His proximity brought on a creeping sense of revulsion. He was the embodiment of all that was servile in India: the Mughals, the British, the Japanese were all the same to them. How many such creatures did India possess? Thousands upon thousands. Was that why he had looked so familiar-the picture of India's ingrained, traditional servility? "Even the British had no choice,' he was saying, 'Even Churchill was compelled to do it.'
He must have missed some important bits. What was Churchill compelled to do? Debi-dayal asked. Why, when Russia was attacked by the Germans, he instantly declared himself on Russia's side: any enemy of Nazism is a friend of Britain. We too have to take a lesson from the enemy. Anyone who is out to destroy the British nation-the Germans, the Japanese should be welcomed as our friends. We must assist them, fight on their side. It is the duty of all patriots."
"Yes, of course,' Debi-dayal managed to say with a measure of eagerness. The sentry outside was joined by another soldier, and they were talking to each other in Japanese.
'We're lucky, both you and I, to be trusted; placed in positions of responsibility. I am sure Netaji himself would have liked to see you. But he is so busy. There is so little time, so much to do.
I am glad I was sent to have this discussion with you, before you went back. One thing I wish to repeat: unquestioning loyalty to the cause. We have to prove it, show our zeal in every action.
That is Netaji's exhortation to all of us. You don't know how much I envy you-how I wish I were in your place."
So that you could have changed sides once again, Debi-dayal thought to himself, put yourself in the hands of the British, adopted another line of talk.
The Brigadier droned on. Even his voice was flabby, Debi- dayal reflected; like that of a eunuch in a harem. Was he one of those? He might quite easily be, with those bulging thighs and puffy, rounded face. How could anyone, either British or Japanese trust such a man?
The Brigadier rose to his feet and hitched up his trousers, pressing down the bulge of his stomach to do up the buttons. He pur on his British officer's cap with the Japanese officer's badges of rank on it. He bowed from his waist and put out his hand.
'I am honoured to have met someone like you, sir; a patriot whose zeal has been tested; someone who has made sacrifices for the cause of his country-our country."
Debi-dayal took the proffered hand, pudgy and light like a piece of stale cake, the moisture still clinging to it, and felt a little unclean by its contact. That was what was wrong with India, the shame and sorrow brought on by this special breed. They represented all that was rotten and degrading in the country: its softness, its corruption, its dishonesty. Surreptitiously he wiped his hand.
Just one thing,' the Brigadier said. 'Remember that where you are going, you will be under constant watch-we have agents everywhere. And we judge by results. If the results do not come up to our expectations, then-perhaps there is no need to tell you what happens.' "None whatever. Debi-dayal said.
"The highest priority must be given to the destruction of the river-craft in East Bengal. The life of East Bengal is totally dependent on its local shipping."
He had been told all that before, by the Kempi-tai Colonel himself, speaking American English. They wanted to soften up the country, to prevent a British build-up. The traffic in the estuary of two of Asia's greatest rivers was entirely based on the paddle boats and canoes of the villagers. The riverside villagers were almost amphibian. Destruction of the boats could paralyse their life.
Blowing up a bridge or destroying an aeroplane were somehow different; his mind shrank from the idea of causing havoc among the poor Bengal villagers, reducing them to starvation to let the Japanese march into India.
And you happen to be particularly vulnerable with your...er background,' the Brigadier was saying. "There is no need to tell anyone as intelligent as yourself, that if your performance is not up to expectation, a letter will go to the Indian police telling them where you are, what you are doing. You know how easy it is to arrange for such a letter to fall into the right hands.'
'Oh, yes."
'Good-bye,' the Brigadier said. 'Sayonara!' He gave another Japanese bow, made awkward by the swell of his stomach.
The neck was ideally positioned for a guillotine chop, a quick jab with the side of the palm, just one quick, downward swing, and the Brigadier would no longer spout his brand of patriotism. Debi-dayal rose to his feet and bowed. 'Sayonara!"
'Chalo-Delhi!'
'Chalo-Delhil
It had been like a turning in the road. He could never become a part of that particular form of degradation. He could understand Mulligan, and he could understand Yamaki. In a way, he could even understand Shafi. What could one make of the Brigadier?
A few days later, he received another jolt. It was as though the coin had been turned to show him the other side, demonstrating that there was little to choose between two brands of conqueror. Which was more repellent, the ugly blotches showing through the white, or the flagrant yellow of the Japanese?
He had never had much stomach for human misery: filth, squalor, hunger, disease, made him squirm. Now, in his trek back to India, just one among thousands upon thousands of refugees fleeing from Burma, they were his constant, inescapable companions. No power that had occupied another country had ever disgraced itself so thoroughly as did the British in their withdrawal from Burma, Debi-dayal kept telling himself; it was far more callous and shocking than the massacre of Jallianwala. An arrogant, unbalanced, bitter man on the spot, ordering his machine gunners to mow down a mob was somehow less evil than were the authorities in Burma, where a Government, its mask of respectability and self-righteousness torn away by a shattering military defeat, had been exposed as an ugly spectre, making the starkest distinction between brown and white.
"Whether you were to be saved or not, depended on the colour of your skin, the refugees told him with bitterness in their hearts. "It was not merely a matter of "white first", but "white only". If the others were slaughtered by the Japanese, it did not matter."
What had happened to the book of rules, to the haughty awareness of the white man's burden?-Debi-dayal asked him- self. The veneer of centuries of civilization seemed to have been flung to one side. Women or children, old or infirm, it had made no difference. The essential qualification for being evacuated was white skin.
His anger and bitterness mounted with the tales of discrimina- tion the refugees had to tell. In the past, even though he had hated the British, he had still felt a grudging admiration for their tradition of fairness. Now, curiously enough, he found himself a little ashamed at the way they had handled the Burma evacuation.
Even before the fall of Rangoon, the big trading corporations had set the pattern by beginning to evacuate the women and children of European officials. Soon afterwards, the Burma Government woke up to their responsibilities to their own kind, and they too carried out an organized evacuation of the families of officials.
The Indians were left to fend for themselves. As it happened, they too were outsiders, just as much as the British were, having gone to Burma in the shadow of the flag, following their British masters. The Burmese hated them, if anything, worse than the British. Once the British had gone, the Indians and everything they possessed were at the mercy of Burmese hooligans. While the battered Burma army was in headlong retreat and the Govern- ment radio was exhorting everyone to keep calm, not to panic or run away, refugees were pouring out of the country in thick swarms, choking the roads. On the way they died like flies; they were butchered by Burmese strong-arm men for their little trinkets, decimated by cholera, smallpox, dysentery and malaria; their womenfolk were taken by anyone who fancied them. But most of all they were destroyed by hunger, falling in their tracks and never rising again. Those who fell were left to die. Of the torrents that left Burma, only a pitifully thin trickle reached their destination, a thousand miles away, having walked all the way through jungle and marsh and mountain. There they were herded into camps and forgotten, like luggage piled up in an abandoned railway yard. They had crossed the great rivers of Burma clinging to rafts, their children tied to their backs, while the planters, the oil-men, the timber- wallahs and the administrators rode back in boats and motor lorries requisitioned by the Government, and long processions of elephants trudged all the way from Burma to India, bringing up the whites who were left behind.
The ugly worm of hatred which he had carried within him all his life reared its head once again, now more grotesque than
ever. If ultimate proof of the wrongs of foreign domination were needed, here it was. Beside it, the barbarity of the Japanese paled into insignificance. One race had been ruling another, vehemently justifying its rule, proudly asserting that they were there only for the benefit of the ruled. But when disaster struck, a disaster brought on by their own decadence and incompetence, they had no time to worry about the obligations of a government to the governed. They had decided to abandon everything and clear out.
Their plans for evacuation, such as they were, envisaged only the evacuation of their own kind, though this did not deter them from seizing all transport, private or public, regardless of whether it belonged to those being left behind. Even his father, staunch supporter of British rule, would have been shocked, Debi-dayal felt.
He had much time to think as he made his way back to India over the mountain paths. What puzzled him most was why the callousness of the British evacuation of Burma had shocked him even more than the Japanese atrocities he had seen. Was it because the British were always to be judged by their own code of conduct?
They had decided to leave the country to its fate and pulled out. That sort of thing could never happen in a free country. Its officials would hold on to their posts if only because they had nowhere to go; they would have no other choice than to stay there and fight, to keep doing their jobs.
And yet, would they? He thought of the Japanized Indian officer who, a few months before, had been an Anglicized Indian officer. Under the British he was a captain; under the Japanese he called himself a brigadier. Would that sort of man ever stand and fight? Or would he always be ready to change sides and rush forward to welcome the victor? What difference did it make to such a man if his country was ruled by the British, the Japanese, the Germans or even some other race like the Chinese?
The Japanese escorted him right up to Kohima. Only a few miles farther on, he ran into the swarms of refugees. He had a background story of having worked as a clerk in an Indian store in Rangoon. He had no papers to prove his identity, but nor had the other refugees. Unlike them, he had plenty of money with him, separate bundles of hundred-rupee and ten-rupee notes,
secreted in his belt. He had been warned not to touch the money until he reached India. He went with the crowd; buffeted, ques- tioned, documented, marked down in a register for employment, and finally forgotten in one of the dumps along the Manipur road, piled up with human flotsam from Burma.
After six weeks in the camp, he was once again on his way, carrying a cyclostyled letter from the Commissioner of Refugee Employment in which his new name had been inserted in the blank space intended for it. It said that the bearer, Kalu-ram, an evacuce from Burma, should be provided with a job.
In the north-western corner of Assam, one of the assistants in the Brindian Tea Company interviewed him, and sent him off to a tea garden called the Silent Hill, as an assistant stockman. His superior was a meek little Indian called Patiram.
By now, Debi-dayal had made up his mind. He was not going to choose between two brands of world conquerors, between playing the role of the Indian Brigadier to Yamaki, or of Gian to Mulligan.
He was grateful for his new-found anonymity and remoteness, and yet he was gnawed by an inner uncertainty. What had hap pened to him, he who loved to be in the midst of strife, to make him want to shun it now? He wanted nothing of either the British or the Japanese. For the moment he was prepared to sit back and wait, while the two titans fought out their battle for India.
He was determined to keep out of the struggle, not to side with either the British or the Japanese; that much was clear. But in doing so, was he like someone waiting on the sidelines for his own turn a wrestler waiting impatiently for the main bout to finish before his own match was called up-or was he a mere onlooker who had no intention of entering the arena? He wondered whether all the exposure to what Gandhi had described as man's inhumanity to man had converted him to his doctrine of non- violence? Or was it just his feeling of revulsion against his fellow- Indians, men like Shafi, the Brigadier and Gian Talwar, that had made his spirit curdle? He did not know the answer; the rights and wrongs were so inextricably mixed up; but he was conscious of some great change that had come over himself. He felt weak, like someone waiting for outside guidance as he tried to convince himself that the matter was out of his hands and that the war between the Japanese and the British would not be affected either way by his own puny efforts. He would lie low till it was all finished. That would give him time to think things over. Once the struggle had been resolved, one way or the other, the issues would be less complicated. That would be the time for him to jump into the fray and resume the struggle for the liberation of his country. Until then, everything would have to wait; even the settlement of his score with Shafi would have to wait until the war was over. For the present, it was enough that he was back in India.
And even in that remote corner of the country, so far away from its heart, he could see signs of the national ferment. The walls of the small bazaar of the Silent Hill estate were covered with thick black slogans scrawled in Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and English. 'QUIT INDIA!
"Quit India!' It had almost made him laugh. The British had left Malaya and Burma, but certainly not in response to such slogans. Those who had called on them to quit were now languishing in prison. The British would never quit a country just because a lot of men dressed in dhotis and white caps im- plored them to do so. The appeal could be regarded as either pathetic or ludicrous, according to whether you were Indian or British. The British would give in only to force. If only the terrorist movement had gone on and had flared up as widely throughout the country as Gandhi's non-violent agitation seemed to have done, this would have been the time for the final assault on the British. They would have needed just one last push. In Assam, he observed, many of them had already begun to evacuate their women and children. It was almost as though they antici- pated the last, unthinkable contingency-mass withdrawal from India.
And so Debi-dayal waited, marking time for the war to finish, filling out his new personality as Kalu-ram, a refugee from Burma who had been made assistant stockman at the Silent Hill Tea Garden in north western Assam.
