Page 122 - Train to Pakistan

Karma

All that morning, people sat in their homes and stared despondently through

their open doors. They saw Malli’s men and the refugees ransack Muslim
houses. They saw Sikh soldiers come and go as if on their beats. They heard the
piteous lowing of cattle as they were beaten and dragged along. They heard the

loud cackle of hens and roosters silenced by the slash of the knife. But they did
nothing but sit and sigh.
A shepherd boy, who had been out gathering mushrooms, came back with the

news that the river had risen. No one took any notice of him. They only wished
that it would rise more and drown the whole of Mano Majra along with them,
their women, children, and cattle—provided it also drowned Malli, his gang, the

refugees, and the soldiers.
While the men sighed and groaned, the rain fell in a steady downpour and the
Sutlej continued to rise. It spread on either side of the central piers which

normally contained the winter channels, and joined the pools round the other
piers into one broad stream. It stretched right across the bridge, licking the dam
which separated it from the fields of Mano Majra. It ran over the many little

islands in the river bed till only the tops of the bushes that grew on them could
be seen. Colonies of cormorants and terns which were used to roosting there
flew over to the banks and then to the bridge—over which no trains had run for

several days.
In the afternoon, another villager went around to the houses shouting, ‘Oi
Banta Singh, the river is rising! Oi Daleep Singha, the river has risen! Oi listen,

it is already up to the dam!’ The people just looked up with their melancholy
eyes signifying, ‘We have heard that before.’ Then another man came with the