Page 90 - Train to Pakistan

‘No, sir, she is my grandmother. My mother died soon after I was born.’
‘How old are you?’

‘I don’t know. Sixteen or seventeen. Maybe eighteen. I was not born literate. I
could not record my date of birth.’
She smiled at her own little joke. The magistrate smiled too. The bearer

brought in a tray of tea, toast and eggs.
The girl got up to arrange the teacups and buttered a piece of toast. She put it
on a saucer and placed it on the table in front of Hukum Chand.

‘I will not eat anything. I have had my tea.’
The girl pretended to be cross.
‘If you do not eat, then I won’t eat either,’ she said coquettishly. She put away

the knife with which she was buttering the toast, and sat down on the bed.
The magistrate was pleased. ‘Now, do not get angry with me,’ he said. He
walked up to her and put his arms round her shoulders. ‘You must eat. You had

nothing last night.’
The girl wriggled in his arms. ‘If you eat, I will eat. If you do not, I will not

either.’
‘All right, if you insist.’ Hukum Chand helped the girl up with his arm around
her waist and brought her to his side of the table. ‘We will both eat. Come and
sit with me.’

The girl got over her nervousness and sat in his lap. She put thickly buttered
toast in his mouth and laughed when he said ‘Enough, enough,’ through his

stuffed mouth. She wiped the butter off his moustache.
‘How long have you been in this profession?’
‘What a silly question to ask! Why, ever since I was born. My mother was a
singer and her mother was a singer till as long back as we know.’

‘I do not mean singing. Other things,’ explained Hukum Chand, looking
away.

‘What do you mean, other things?’ asked the girl haughtily. ‘We do not go
about doing other things for money. I am a singer and I dance. I do not suppose
you know what dancing and singing are. You just know about other things. A

bottle of whisky and other things. That is all!’
Hukum Chand cleared his throat with a nervous cough. ‘Well …I did not do
anything.’

The girl laughed and pressed her hand on the magistrate’s face. ‘Poor
Magistrate Sahib. You had evil intentions, but you were tired. You snored like a