Bhowani Junction

THIS BOOK IS WHOLLY A WORK OF FICTION, AND NO REFERENCE
is intended in it to any person living or dead, except that a few public figures are mentioned.

In spite of the fact that I have altered, by a few months, the date of the mutinies in the Royal Indian Navy, I hope this book is also a work of history—because I have tried to give the ‘feel’ of the times and a sense of historical perspective.

This book might have been dedicated to the Anglo-Indian communities of India and Pakistan. But so many thousands of Anglo-Indians, over so many years, have dedicated their lives to the service of the railway that I am happy to follow their example.

male, thirty-six, Eurasian, unmarried; a non-gazetted
officer in the Traffic Department of the Delhi Deccan
Railway

I had a fine Norton that year, in Bhowani. It’s got smashed up since, but it was looking good the day I went down to see Victoria after she came back from the Army. I got to the house, cut off the engine, and sat there in the saddle while it coughed, hiccuped once or twice, and died. The truth is I was afraid to go in. She’d been away a long time. She was an officer. She’d have changed.

I left the bike on its stand and walked round toward the side of the house. It was Number 4 Collett Road, it and Number 3 being joined together—what they call a semi-detached bungalow at Home. Then there’s about thirty yards of grass between Number 4 and Number 5. Number 5 is semi-detached with Number 6. Collett Road is in the Railway Lines, where we railway people live. There are really three separate Bhowanis—the Railway Lines, the cantonments, where the English live, and the city, where God knows how many thousand Indians are packed in like sardines.

I was still afraid to go in. I stood for a while looking down between Number 4 and Number 5 at an engine on the line beyond. The main railway line runs past the back of all those bungalows on Collett Road.

I like to hear steam engines breathing. That one was an old 2-8-2. It stood there hissing softly, waiting for the signal to change. It was a very hot and quiet afternoon, that, early in May 1946.

I could see the upper part of the engine and tender above the line of straggly bushes at the bottom of the Jones’s compound. The crew were all Wogs. They like to be called Indians, especially nowadays, but I always call them Wogs in my mind still.
We
used to have that run, but it was always Wogs
by 1946. It wasn’t much of a run, a down goods train, but when they took it over it meant that they were pushing us out of another job. The driver was wiping his hands on a piece of dasooty. When he saw me looking at him he turned his head away. He didn’t smile or wave, though I knew him quite well.

I ought to explain here that ‘down’ means the direction going away from Bombay, and ‘up’ means going to Bombay. Every railway has its own words, but that’s what we use on the Delhi Decean. Perhaps I ought to say too that ‘Wogs’ is a word for Indians, and when I say ‘we’ or ‘us’ I mean the Anglo-Indians. Sometimes we’re called Domiciled Europeans. Most of us have a little Indian blood—not much, of course.

Oh my, it was hot that Saturday. The roofs of those bungalows are flat. It must be like an oven in there, I was thinking; and I made that my excuse not to go in, although it was like an oven everywhere that day. The only thing that made me feel cool was thinking of the footplate. There it must have been—my God, you can’t explain how hot the footplate of an engine gets in the hot weather. You have to know.

You must not think there was nothing in me but fright at that time. There was so much love too, and the love kept pushing me toward the front door of Number 4. It was terrible to put the moment off, and it was terrible to face it. The real trouble, I must tell you now, is that, whatever I feel inside me, nothing comes out right when I have to change the feeling into speaking or doing. Not long ago I had a puppy—and, oh my, I was fond of that puppy. One day soon after getting it I bent down to stroke it, but I had a cigarette in my hand and I burned it instead. I tell you that because there were hundreds of things like that, all my life, from the beginning.

But I had to go in sooner or later, so I walked to the front door and rang the bell. Rose Mary, Victoria’s sister, opened it so quickly she must have been watching me. I was nervous at seeing her, because I had been going out a bit with her while Victoria was away in the Army, and Rose Mary is a funny girl.

She said quickly, ‘Oh, hello, Mr Taylor, do come in. Victoria will be ready in a minute. Won’t you sit in the parlour?’
Then she walked away, and I went into the parlour but I didn’t sit down. I could smell the dinner they’d been having, and Mrs Jones was standing at the end of the passage. She didn’t say anything to me. Mrs Jones is—well, difficult. She is very brown, and her stockings always hang in wrinkles round her legs, and she chews betel nut in secret.

It was a good parlour, that. Mr Jones had done it up very tastefully with mahogany furniture he’d bought second-hand. The chairs had embroidered white pieces hanging over the backs to keep your hair oil off them. There was a big mirror, and a beautiful fringed green cloth on the table, and on the floor there was the skin of a black bear with its head up. There were pictures of the King Emperor, the Queen Empress, and old Sergeant Duck, and several paintings—a deer in a fog, two dogs with a salmon, and others by famous painters.

I heard Rose Mary stamping about the passage and shouting ‘Nathoo!’ She has a very shrill voice and she was in a bad temper. Nathoo was the house servant, the bearer, and cook.

It was in the mirror that I saw Victoria first. I tell you, my heart stood still. Victoria is tall, and her eyes are brown, and she has the longest legs and thick black hair. I don’t want to talk about her figure, because I love her, but she has a figure like a film star’s, only better. I was not even thinking of her figure then, only of how much I loved her, and how she used to laugh at everything and be so happy and smiling, especially with me. It always seemed to me that we’d grown up together, but we hadn’t really, because I was several years older than she was.

She moved slowly into the room, leaving the door open behind her. It was dark in there with the blinds drawn. I said, ‘Why—why, Vicky, you have grown!’ I was nervous, and it was a foolish thing to say, but I have told you about me, so I hope you understand.

She said, ‘Don’t call me Vicky.’ She never liked that, but I’d forgotten. She didn’t mind me teasing her in the old days, though.

I had my topi in my hand, and she smiled at me and came forward. I said, ‘You were glaring at me just now as if I was
one of your bad Army girls. Should I call you “Ma’am,” then, after all? Miss Subaltern Jones?’

She laughed and said, ‘No, that’s all over, thank heavens. Only please call me Victoria,’

I took a pace toward her, the topi dangling in my left hand, and I put out my right hand to touch her. It was breathless in there, and my voice was hoarse. I said, ‘Victoria,’ and then I dropped my topi and took her in my arms and kissed her.

It started as a little kiss, a gentle kiss. Then I wanted to put my heart there in that kiss because I did not dare to speak. We kissed a long time. She seemed to be experimenting, like someone tasting a new dish. It was natural, after all, because we had not kissed for four years—but
I
had not forgotten, there was no need for me to taste her lips and kiss harder and softer to see what it was like. I wondered then whether she’d kissed any of the officers up there in Delhi. But I didn’t like to think about that. It would only make me miserable to know, and yet I’d love her just the same, which would make me more miserable than ever. So I shook my head, to shake that idea out of it, and stopped thinking about it.

She thought I’d had enough of kissing when I shook my head, so she stood back from me. Then she said, ‘It is nice to see you again, Patrick.’

‘That is exactly what I was going to say, Vicky—Victoria,’ I said, and straightened my tie. I was wearing my old school tie from St Thomas’s, Gondwara, light-grey flannel trousers, and a sunproof coat. I always like to wear my old St Thomas’s tie, and especially in those days, because St Thomas’s was in the same kind of trouble as the rest of us—the trouble being that we Anglo-Indians didn’t want to sink to the level of the Indians, and the Indians hated us for being superior to them, and St Thomas’s was a kind of symbol of the whole thing, because it was only for Anglo-Indians and Domiciled Europeans.

I said, ‘Shall we go now? You haven’t seen my bike yet, have you? It’s a Norton. It makes it much handier for me to get up and down to the station, and I can use it in the yards.’

She said, ‘Of course. What a good idea, Patrick. Well,
where are we going?’

I told her just for a ride. I thought we would go down to the Karode Bridge to dangle our feet in the water. We might have a swim, I was thinking.

I became nervous again. A lot of people call me cocksure, and that must be the way I sound, but I am not really sure of anything much, except that I love Victoria. This time I got nervous because I was thinking of Victoria in a bathing suit, and that made me think of her getting into her bathing suit. She used to let me touch her there before she went off to the Army, and I got all trembly wondering whether she would again. That was what was on my mind.

She said, ‘All right. That sounds fun. I’ll get my towel and bathing suit.’

While she was in her room Rose Mary came along and leaned against the passage wall near me. She stuck her bust out and held her shoulders back while she talked with me, and she was looking at me in a funny way. I am afraid she was jealous. I am afraid the truth is that I had—you know, done it several times with her while Victoria was away. I am afraid the truth is that Rose Mary was rather an immoral girl.

When Victoria came back Rose Mary said, ‘Good-bye. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Mind you’re back for supper, Vicky. Pater will be home.’

Victoria looked rather crossly at her. Rose Mary was Victoria’s elder sister, and I don’t think they’d ever exactly loved each other. Victoria said, ‘Pater’s taking Ninety-Eight Up through to Gondwara, isn’t he? So he won’t be back here till tomorrow afternoon. What are you talking about?’

Rose Mary flushed angrily and said, ‘Oh, yes. I forgot. Well, good-bye then.’

I tried to laugh it off. I said cheerily, ‘Abyssinia, Rosie,’ but I wasn’t feeling happy. Rose Mary was behaving so badly I didn’t see how Victoria could help guessing, so I made up my mind to confess as soon as I could.

Victoria was out in the road looking at my Norton. It wasn’t new, but I’d only just bought it second-hand. I put my hand on her bare arm. I said, ‘Where is your topi? You will get all
sunburned.’

‘I never wear one,’ she told me.

‘But the sun!’ I cried. ‘It is the hottest time of the day! You will get all brown!’

She tossed her head. The heavy dark curls of hair swung round on her shoulders. She looked at me in a funny way and said, ‘It isn’t sunburn that makes us brown, is it?’

I was bending over the handlebars, turning the twist-grip throttle. It was not a nice thing to say, and I felt frightened that she had said it. If we didn’t wear topis people would think we were Wogs—not me, I have pale blue eyes, almost green, and red hair, a sort of dull ginger—but most of us. She knew that, so there was nothing to say.

I felt her taking a good look at me. Her own skin was the same colour as mine, perhaps a little browner, less yellow. We didn’t look like English people. We looked like what we were—Anglo-Indians, Eurasians, cheechees, half-castes, eight-annas, blacky-whites.
I’ve
heard all the names they call us, but I don’t think about them unless I’m angry.

I kicked furiously, and the engine turned over. I twisted the throttle so that the engine made the hell of a noise, a real racketing bellow. I didn’t dare speak myself, but I could make the Norton say something for me. Victoria seemed to understand about the noise I was making, so I throttled down and told her to hop on.

She stuffed her towel roll down with mine behind my saddle, and picked up her dress a bit to put her leg across the carrier. I watched out of the corners of my eyes and saw quite high up as she got on. She said, laughing, ‘Eyes front!’ and I laughed too. When she was ready she said into my ear, ‘Don’t go too fast, now, Patrick.’

Just as the bike began to move Rose Mary ran out of the house, waving her hand and shouting, ‘Patrick, wait, stop!’ She was breathless and sort of happy, like when you’re hurting someone you don’t like. I had to stop, though I didn’t want to. She said, ‘Patrick, you’re wanted at the office. They’ve just telephoned.’

I sat there with my feet spread, holding the Norton upright.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed. I beat the top of the petrol tank with my hands and shouted, ‘Oh, it is too bad! Can’t that bloody Wog do anything by himself? I’ve only just left the bloody station.’

‘It’s a derailment,’ Rose Mary told us.

There are accidents sometimes on any railway, but when Rose Mary said ‘derailment’ the picture that popped up in my mind was of a Wog pulling out a fish-plate, and all mixed up with that was the result of what he’d done—the smash, and the Wog dancing up and down and yelling for joy. That was the awful thing, that anyone should be happy to see a train derailed.

‘Who are you talking about?’ Victoria asked.

‘Mr Ranjit Bloody Singh Kasel, my new assistant,’ I said.

Victoria said, ‘I’ll come to the station with you. Perhaps you won’t have to stay long.’

Rose Mary opened her mouth and shut it again. I think Victoria made her suggestion just to annoy Rose Mary, just to show her that I belonged to her, Victoria, as much as I belonged to anybody. But I didn’t really care why she’d said it, I was so pleased that she had said it, and especially pleased because it was her idea, not mine.

We roared up the Pike, going past the Little Bazaar and the Silver Guru’s tree. The station was about three-quarters of a mile that way, though it was less if you walked down the railway lines.

There were the usual tongas standing in the station yard when we got there, and a couple of buses, and a taxi owned by a smart-aleck Sikh. The station building at Bhowani Junction is made of old red brick with yellow layers and some yellow diamond patterns. It is two storeys high, and there are five wide stone steps leading up to the gate. The gateway is an arch, like an old fortress or something.

I propped the Norton against the outside wall and ran behind Victoria up the steps. The platform was crowded with natives, as usual. She stopped there and looked about her as if she’d never seen it before, as if it was the Taj Mahal or some kind of showplace, like the Tower of London at Home, though
it was just the same as it had always been. A row of doorways opened off the platform into the various rooms, and a sign hung out over each door, saying what the room was for: Station Master; Assistant Station Master; Telegraphs; Way Out; Booking Office; No Admittance; Refreshment Room, European; Refreshment Room, Muslim; Refreshment Room, Hindu, Vegetarian; Refreshment Room, Hindu, Non-Vegetarian; First-Class Waiting Room; Second-Class Waiting Room; Third-Class Waiting Room; Ladies’ Waiting Room—what we always called the Purdah Room.