24th August 2004. Tuesday.
It’s the same problem again. Not knowing how and where to start after a long break. I think the last entry was made on 12th or 13th of this month. Probably the 13th. That it was made in Jaipur jail hospital is something that I am sure of. And that my orders to move out from there came as a very rude shock is also something I distinctly remember. This is where that man Soni, who is a convict in charge of the hospital administration, did me in. He told the Lady Doctor that my treatment was over and that she should sign my Guard Chit to be sent back to Udaipur. That the whole thing came out of the blue is an understatement. I was sure that I wouldn’t be touched for another month and a half and was well organized for a long stay with enough food to last for two months if necessary. Baba had come to see me just the day before and as usual he came loaded with tons of food. So imagine my horror and shock when just as we were about to be locked up for the night, I was told that I was wanted at the gate. My first reaction was that something had happened to Baba and with my heart beating wildly and feverish prayers on my lips I ran to the gate only to be told that I was to leave for Udaipur immediately. I was so confused and frightened that I could hardly speak. I ran back to the ward and asked Soni as to what had happened. Why was I being sent back? Had something gone wrong back home. Very calmly he said, no my treatment was complete and so I was being sent back. I told him that my treatment hadn’t even started, what was he talking about? My RCT was to be done, then I was to see the eye specialist and that nothing had been done, so where was the question of my treatment having been completed? I said that he knew that very well. He just kept looking with that smug look on his face as if to say ‘you thought you could get away without paying my fees’. I realized that I had been done in from him and there was nothing I could do about it. I thought of telling the Jailor that I was being sent back without being treated, but when I went to the office I found that the jailor on duty was the most corrupt and vicious bastard in the whole jail setup. . Realizing that I had been beaten I went back to the ward to pack all my stuff in minutes flat.
The upshot of the whole thing was that I had to leave more than half my things behind. Hurriedly I told the youngster from Delhi that he should see that Mahinder gets all my stuff and to tell him that I had to leave in a hurry. And with that I found myself at the gate more or less ready to leave for Udaipur had a thing like this happened five or six months back I don’t know what would have happened to me. I would have had either a stroke or a heart attack. As things stood that day I was able to regain some equanimity and by the time I was let into the main gate I had regained my balance. The main thing was that Baba was all right and the thing was all right at home and that I was being sent back to Udaipur as a form of punishment by that stupid SOB Soni and his gang. I am sure the bastard Toothy knew about my being sent back, but being the slimy bastard that he is, he didn’t let me in on the back room maneuvers. Had I known about this, I would have approached the Lady Doctor, and had the Guard Chit cancelled. Anyway I didn’t stay upset for long. The main thing was that it had nothing to do with home and that’s all that really mattered. That these bastards were one up on me didn’t really hurt. There was plenty of time to get my own back on them. One day or the other. With these thoughts of consolation I walked up to the guards to be handcuffed for my journey back to Udaipur.
There is nothing much to write about the journey. The bus journey from the prison to the railway station was hot and suffocating. It wasn’t embarrassing because I have got used to being paraded around in handcuffs and to see people staring at you. All that didn’t put me off in the least. What did was the sight of the people moving about. Cars with people in them. People going about their normal chores. People leading a normal life. People who were free. Free to choose their own turnings in life. For better or for worse. I too had somewhere down the line chosen my own turning. Only that it turned out to be for worse. Shutting my eyes tight and trying to think of the peace of my blanket in the jail didn’t really help. On the contrary it only earned me a bump on my head and a strong admonition from my guard. The sudden slamming of brakes had caught me unawares and I banged my forehead on the front seat railing, getting an ugly bump for my efforts.
How can I describe or explain what it’s like to be a prisoner. Literally chained to the will of others. Being dragged from one place to another likes a dog on a leash. The only difference being that the dog didn’t have to lug two bags and a bucket as it was being dragged through the streets. I am sure the people seated in the comfort of their cars were just as embarrassed as I was, but that thought was hardly a consolation, let alone physical relief. Half running behind the policemen with the chained arm outstretched, clutching at the shoulder bags as they bit into my shoulder, the other arm clutching the bucket and falling trousers at the same time could hardly have made a very edifying sight. I was too busy trying to stay on my feet to think of what the people around were thinking. My greatest sense of consolation and relief being that Baba and the children were not around to see their beloved and once revered Grandfather being dragged along the railway platform like a Pariah dog. I don’t even want to think of what it would have done to them. Baba would have gone berserk and waded into the policemen lashing out at them in blind fury, unmindful of the terrifying consequences. While the children would have stood by huddled together crying piteous by weeping their eyes out. I don’t know whether it was this thought, or a speck of dust or just the exhaust of the engine that blurred my vision for the moment, but long enough to miss seeing the outstretched towing arm of a baggage trolley which sent me sprawling on the filthy platform. The bag landed with a big thump, cushioning my face, whilst the bucket went flying with aloud clutter, with my arm almost wrenched from its socket. I found myself lying on the platform, one arm outstretched in the air as if crying out for mercy. Getting up shakily, rubbing my chin, all I could see for a moment was the open door of one of the compartments and the wheels of the bogey.
In that moment, as if something in my mind had snapped, everything came to a standstill and I found myself thrown back fifty years in time looking down at a pair of gray stockinged feet of a young boy of ten. I wasn’t holding on to a bag anymore, but the hand of a liveried servant. We were not standing in front a dirty third class compartment but in front of the door of my father’s immaculately kept railway saloon. The brass gleaming in the light lanterns mounted on the side. When I think of my father’s saloon and the general condition of the railway carriages then and the state of the carriages today, I cannot but help feeling glad that my father was not alive to see the cherished railway of his days having fallen to this abominable state of filth and despair. The shabby and unkempt trains would have made him fly off in a rage that would have made every railway employee shake at his knees. The stationmaster would have been sacked on the spot and God knows who else. For certain the person closest at hand would have felt the wrong end of my father’s cane on his rear. At the moment Daddy was definitely not in a good mood. I could see him pacing up and down, close to the saloon, whilst all the railway officials stood at a respectable distance. Everyone standing quietly, as if waiting for something to happen. They sure had a good reason to wait for something. No actually it was not something, it was someone. That someone was none else than her Royal Highness Rani RA Singh, my mother. As usual she was late; because that is the time it took the horse buggy to cover the distance from the Cinema Hall to the railway station. She knew this and she also knew the time the train had to leave the station. Yet she had to see the late night show, knowing very well that it would delay the departure of the train and at the same time infuriate my father. Even though it made Daddy very angry, he never hit her or scolded her. It was always ‘my darling, you shouldn’t do this or you should do that’. Not once in my life did I see him loose his temper on her. Every time that I think of this I can’t help marveling at my father’s self control. If I had been in his place I most probably would have kicked the shit out of her. To this day I can’t figure out what he saw in her. She was quite a good looker, I admit, but I don’t think she was all that pretty so as to make a man mess up his career. Even though my father was the Chief Engineer in the Railways and supposed to be a brilliant officer, whom no one could touch, but all the same I am sure my mother’s habit of treating the Indian Railways as her private property must have affected his career, because he didn’t go on to become the Chairman of the Railway Board, which as high as one could have gone in those days. One of the major reasons of his not making it to the top slot was his ill health, but deep down I have this feeling that my mother’s interference and cavalier attitude must definitely have played a significant role.
Anyway this is all beside the point. What I do know is that we had a wonderful time in out youth. Whenever we traveled and wherever we traveled, it was always in style. With dogs, servants and heaven knows what not. I don’t think that the President of India could have traveled with so much fanfare and luxury. It was not till very late in life that we began to know what money was. All that we knew was that it was there and plenty of it. There were so many servants in the house that I hardly knew most of them. At a time we had no less than thirty servants around the house. You can guess the number of servants we must have had from the fact that we had three cooks, who in turn had three helpers each just to grind the spices, do the cutting and chopping and things like that. Then we had the gardeners, the sweepers, the washer man and his whole family, the kennel boys who looked after out fourteen dogs and so on. Not to forget the fact that we had fifty cows to boot. What I do remember distinctly is that half the Anglo Indians in the Railway Colony was alive because of the free milk that was doled out every day.
Because the Railways were my father’s life, it was naturally an integral part of ours too. Whenever and wherever we traveled, it was always by train. Airlines and travel by road was unheard of, except when we had to drive up into the hills in summer. So it was always the trains. And this perhaps why I just love to travel by train. Even though traveling by train is no longer what it was, the best mode of travel for me is still ‘train’. Being rocked from side to side with the clickety-click of the wheels is the best and soundest way to fall off to sleep.
So in spite of the shackles biting into my emaciated wrists and the hard third class bench making it difficult to find a restful position, I managed to close my eyes and shut out the painful sight of the policemen around me, but not the thought of how far I had come in life and how low I had fallen. To lay on a filthy third class bench, chained to the scum of the Earth, the Indian Policemen, I felt like reducing the pain by letting few drops of tears squeeze past my eyelids but what I had learnt in the past few months was that it didn’t help. Not anymore. So I just lay there being rocked from side to side wishing that all this would come to an end. Perhaps a head on collision, the trains going off the tracks, or a quick lunge through the open door, taking the obscene policeman with you, as you made your way to the lavatory. This was all a futile exercise. The thought of the children keeping you going from one click of the wheels to another. till, I mercifully fell into some kind of sleep. Waking up now and then, only to see the policemen spread out in different forms of sleep. So the journey , rocked along, with nothing to look forward to, maybe a brief moment with Baba at the Udaipur station, a tight hug as you hung on to the only reason to live on. To brush his tears away telling him not to cry. To be brave. That everything would be all right. That I was well. That he shouldn’t worry about me. To look after the children and himself. A hundred rupees to the policeman so that you could sit on the bench and cling to Baba for a few minutes more. To sit next to him, to put your head on his shoulder to savour every moment with him. But there was nothing to savour, only the pain. And the regret that happiness was a thing of the past. That we were just going through the motions of loving. Fooling ourselves from one moment to the next that it would all turn out right. I had made out a mental list of the things that I wanted to ask him about, but just being with him I forgot all about it. I kept asking the same stupid question over and over again. How is he? How are the children? Are they eating properly? Are they happy? Do they cry at night?
Everything had changed so much. My voice was weak and scratchy. It quivered so much that I had to repeat my questions just so that Baba could make out what I was saying. I knew that I had made out a long list of questions for him to answer, but just couldn’t think of anything but to keep asking as to how they were. Sounds terribly stupid and insane, but then that’s the way it is. What is the point in asking things pertaining to my case? What was he going to say? That things are working out in our favour. That things were going as planned. That very soon I would be set free. His whole body language was crying out the answers. That no, nothing was going our way. Nothing was working to our advantage. That death in prison was becoming a certainty. That there was no way out. Even a small shred of hope would have helped. But nothing. Not even false hopes. Not even a word of false assurance. Everyone was so positively negative. So would you hold it against Baba for not being able to hold back his tears? For knowing that he would never be able to hold me with joy in his heart. So how could being dragged along the platform in chains hurt or humiliate me? I could have been flogged naked in the streets and it wouldn’t have hurt. How can you hurt something that is dead? Something from whom life and the reason for living has gone out. How can the prison gates appear forbidding any more? All these things have lost their sting. They don’t matter anymore. As if saying that you have slipped past their power over you, even the police guards have lost their rough edge. Giving you the respect reserved for the last rites. Though pity is not in their lexicon , a sense of shame at the vagaries of destiny is. And the sudden sense of fear that it could be one of them too. Not today, but who knows, some day. That roles could be reversed. That the son crying his eyes out could one day be his. The person dragging could be the person dragged. If this could happen to innocent people, it could definitely happen to those who are not. A sobering thought for even the case hardened. For even they have loved ones waiting somewhere, who cling and put their cheeks against his. Even rotten flesh is still a flesh. Enough to apologize for the scars on my wrist. To mumble that it was a part of their job. That it can happen to the best. A salve for their conscious not mine.
Posted by Wg Cdr Suhas Dighe at 2:20 AM 0 comments
