Page 108 - Train to Pakistan

about the village. These were reasons enough to be angry with someone. So they
decided to be angry with the Muslims; Muslims were basely ungrateful. Logic
was never a strong point with Sikhs; when they were roused, logic did not matter
at all.

It was a gloomy night. The breeze that had swept away the clouds blew them
back again. At first they came in fleecy strands of white. The moon wiped them

off its face. Then they came in large billows, blotted out the moonlight and
turned the sky a dull grey. The moon fought its way through, and occasionally,
patches of the plain sparkled like silver. Later, clouds came in monstrous black
formations and spread across the sky. Then, without any lightning or thunder, it

began to rain.
A group of Sikh peasants gathered together in the house of the lambardar.

They sat in a circle around a hurricane lantern—some on a charpai, others on the
floor. Meet Singh was amongst them.
For a long time nobody said anything apart from repeating, ‘God is punishing

us for our sins.’
‘Yes, God is punishing us for our sins.’
‘There is a lot of zulum in Pakistan.’

‘That is because He wants to punish us for our sins. Bad acts yield a bitter
harvest.’
Then one of the younger men spoke. ‘What have we done to deserve this? We

have looked upon the Muslims as our brothers and sisters. Why should they send
somebody to spy on us?’
‘You mean Iqbal?’ Meet Singh said. ‘I had quite a long conversation with

him. He had an iron bangle on his wrist like all of us Sikhs and told me that his
mother had wanted him to wear it, so he wore it. He is a shaven Sikh. He does
not smoke. And he came the day after the moneylender’s murder.’

‘Bhai, you get taken in easily,’ replied the same youth. ‘Does it hurt a
Mussulman to wear an iron bangle or not smoke for a day—particularly if he has
some important work to do?’

‘I may be a simple bhai,’ protested Meet Singh warmly, ‘but I know as well as
you that the babu had nothing to do with the murder; he would not have been in
the village afterwards if he had. That any fathead would understand.’

The youth felt a little abashed.
‘Besides that,’ continued Meet Singh more confidently, ‘they had already