Page 35 - Train to Pakistan

‘Can you tell me, Stationmaster Sahib, if there is a place I can stay in this

village?’
The stationmaster was irritated. The visitor’s urban accent, his appearance,
dress and holdall had the stationmaster holding back his temper.

‘There are no hotels or inns in Mano Majra,’ he answered with polite sarcasm.
‘There is only the Sikh temple. You will see the yellow flag-mast in the centre of
the village.’

‘Thank you, sir.’
The police party and the stationmaster scrutinized the youth with a little
diffidence. Not many people said ‘thank you’ in these parts. Most of the ‘thank

you’ crowd were foreign-educated. They had heard of several well-to-do young
men, educated in England, donning peasant garb to do rural uplift work. Some
were known to be Communist agents. Some were sons of millionaires, some

sons of high government officials. All were looking for trouble, and capable of
making a lot of noise. One had to be careful.
The young man went out of the station towards the village. He walked with a

consciously erect gait, a few yards in front of the policemen. He was uneasily
aware of their attention. The itch on the back of his neck told him that they were
looking at him and talking about him. He did not scratch or look back—he just

walked on like a soldier. He saw the flag-mast draped in yellow cloth with a
triangular flag above the conglomeration of mud huts. On the flag was the Sikh
symbol in black, a quoit with a dagger running through and two swords crossed

beneath. He went along the dusty path lined on either side by scraggy bushes of
prickly pear which fenced it off from the fields. The path wound its narrow way

past the mud huts to the opening in the centre where the moneylender’s house,
the mosque and the temple faced each other. Underneath the peepul tree half a
dozen villagers were sitting on a low wooden platform talking to each other.
They got up as soon as they saw the policemen and followed them into Ram

Lal’s house. No one took any notice of the stranger.
He stepped into the open door of the temple courtyard. At the end opposite the

entrance was a large hall in which the scripture, the Granth, lay wrapped in
gaudy silks under a velvet awning. On one side were two rooms. A brick
stairway ran along the wall to the roof of the rooms. Across the courtyard was a