Page 154 - Train to Pakistan

break them when he makes love to you and mauls you.’ There were a dozen on
each of her arms, covering them from the wrists to the elbows. She felt them
with her fingers. They were hard and brittle. He would have to do a lot of
hugging and savaging to break them. She stopped daydreaming as the bus pulled

up. There were large stones on the road. Then hundreds of people surrounded
them. Everyone was ordered off the bus. Sikhs were just hacked to death. The

clean-shaven were stripped. Those that were circumcised were forgiven. Those
that were not, were circumcised. Not just the foreskin: the whole thing was cut
off. She who had not really had a good look at Mansa Ram was shown her
husband completely naked. They held him by the arms and legs and one man cut

off his penis and gave it to her. The mob made love to her. She did not have to
take off any of her bangles. They were all smashed as she lay in the road, being

taken by one man and another and another. That should have brought her a lot of
good luck!
Sunder Singh’s case was different. Hukum Chand had had him recruited for

the army. He had done well. He was a big, brave Sikh with a row of medals won
in battles in Burma, Eritrea and Italy. The government had given him land in
Sindh. He came to his tryst by train, along with his wife and three children.

There were over five hundred men and women in a compartment meant to carry
‘40 sitting, 12 sleeping’. There was just one little lavatory in the corner without
any water in the cistern. It was 115° in the shade; but there was no shade—not a

shrub within miles. Only the sun and the sand … and no water. At all stations
there were people with spears along the railings. Then the train was held up at a
station for four days. No one was allowed to get off. Sunder Singh’s children

cried for water and food. So did everyone else. Sunder Singh gave them his urine
to drink. Then that dried up too. So he pulled out his revolver and shot them all.
Shangara Singh aged six with his long brown-blonde hair tied up in a topknot,

Deepo aged four with curling eyelashes, and Amro, four months old, who tugged
at her mother’s dry breasts with her gums and puckered up her face till it was
full of wrinkles, crying frantically. Sunder Singh also shot his wife. Then he lost

his nerve. He put the revolver to his temple but did not fire. There was no point
in killing himself. The train had begun to move. He heaved out the corpses of his
wife and children and came along to India. He did not redeem the pledge. Only

his family did.
Hukum Chand felt wretched. The night had fallen. Frogs called from the river.