Page 12 - Train to Pakistan

children are asleep. The older people wait for its rumble over the bridge to lull
them to slumber. Then life in Mano Majra is stilled, save for the dogs barking at
the trains that pass in the night.
It had always been so, until the summer of 1947.

One heavy night in August of that year, five men emerged from a keekar grove
not far from Mano Majra, and moved silently towards the river. They were
dacoits, or professional robbers, and all but one of them were armed. Two of the

armed men carried spears. The others had carbines slung over their shoulders.
The fifth man carried a chromium-plated electric torch. When they came to the
embankment, he flicked the torch alight. Then he grunted and snapped it off.

‘We will wait here,’ he said.
He dropped down on the sand. The others crouched around him, leaning on
their weapons. The man with the torch looked at one of the spearmen.

‘You have the bangles for Jugga?’
‘Yes. A dozen of red and blue glass. They would please any village wench.’
‘They will not please Jugga,’ one of the gunmen said.

The leader laughed. He tossed the torch in the air and caught it. He laughed
again and raised the torch to his mouth and touched the switch. His cheeks
glowed pink from the light inside.

‘Jugga could give the bangles to that weaver’s daughter of his,’ the other
spearman said. ‘They would look well with those large gazelle eyes and the little
mango breasts. What is her name?’

The leader turned off the torch and took it from his mouth. ‘Nooran,’ he said.
‘Aho,’ the spearman said. ‘Nooran. Did you see her at the spring fair? Did you
see that tight shirt showing off her breasts and the bells tinkling in her plaits and

the swish-swish of silk? Hai!’
‘Hai!’ the spearman with the bangles cried. ‘Hai! Hai!’
‘She must give Jugga a good time,’ said the gunman who had not yet spoken.

‘During the day, she looks so innocent you would think she had not shed her
milk teeth.’ He sighed. ‘But at night, she puts black antimony in her eyes.’

‘Antimony is good for the eyes,’ one of the others said. ‘It is cooling.’
‘It is good for other people’s eyes as well,’ the gunman said.
‘And cooling to their passions, too.’
‘Jugga?’ the leader said.