Page 127 - Train to Pakistan

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind what the train contained. They were

sure that the soldiers would come for oil and wood. They had no more oil to
spare and the wood they had left was too damp to burn. But the soldiers did not
come. Instead, a bulldozer arrived from somewhere. It began dragging its lower

jaw into the ground just outside the station on the Mano Majra side. It went
along, eating up the earth, chewing it, casting it aside. It did this for several
hours, until there was a rectangular trench almost fifty yards long with mounds

of earth on either side. Then it paused for a break. The soldiers and policemen
who had been idly watching the bulldozer at work were called to order and
marched back to the platform. They came back in twos carrying canvas

stretchers. They tipped the stretchers into the pit and went back to the train for
more. This went on all day till sunset. Then the bulldozer woke up again. It

opened its jaws and ate up the earth it had thrown out before and vomited it into
the trench till it was level with the ground. The place looked like the scar of a
healed-up wound. Two soldiers were left to guard the grave from the
depredations of jackals and badgers.

That evening, the entire village turned up for the evening prayers at the
gurdwara. This had never happened before, except on Gurus’ birthdays or on the
New Year’s Day in April. The only regular visitors to the temple were old men

and women. Others came to have their children named, for baptisms, weddings
and funerals. Attendance at prayers had been steadily going up since the murder
of the moneylender; people did not want to be alone. Since the Muslims had

gone, their deserted houses with doors swinging wide open had acquired an
eerie, haunted look. Villagers walked past them quickly without turning their
heads. The one place of refuge to which people could go without much

explanation was the gurdwara. Men came pretending that they would be needed;
women just to be with them, and they brought the children. The main hall where
the scripture was kept and the two rooms on the side were jammed with refugees

and villagers. Their shoes were neatly arranged in rows on the other side of the
threshold.
Meet Singh read the evening prayer by the light of the hurricane lamp. One of

the men stood behind him waving a fly whisk. When the prayer was over, the
congregation sang a hymn while Meet Singh folded the Granth in gaudy silk
scarfs and laid it to rest for the night. The worshippers stood up and folded their