Night Out >>>

Whoever believes Hindi is the Indian language that has the most colourful profanities hasn’t met my friend Subroto Hajra. Subroto—friends called him Bonu—could reel out an astonishing array of Bangla swearwords at breakneck speed. But only if someone rubbed him on the wrong side; otherwise, he was a genial soul.

This innocent practitioner of graphic language had acquired the nickname I have just revealed in a rather strange manner. A beautiful and quiet girl in our class was Anusri, who generally kept to herself. A year after sharing classrooms with her, one day in some context, Subroto referred to her as Bonosree. It was outrageous that one of us would be unaware of the name of one of the most beautiful girls around. That day onward, everyone began calling Subroto Bonosree; in course of time, the moniker mutated into Bonu.

Behind his apparently abrasive exterior, a poet lived in Bonu. He didn’t usually smoke, but sometime during his stay in Dashachakra Hostel, he acquired a few packets of long Kent cigarettes that had white filter tips. He hid this treasure securely from predators, but at times, when the night was particularly beautiful, he would ask me to accompany him on a walk. But the pretext would be different; he would always say, borrowing the manufacturer’s slogan: ‘Let’s have a Kent!’

Once, in a cloudless full moon night, Bonu proposed that we go out for a long walk after supper. The two of us armed ourselves with a flask of black Nescafé and set out. It was a foolish thing to do because the time was early 1970s when—as I’ve written—the Naxalite movement had spread in our district, people were being killed randomly. Armed policemen patrolled roads at night. Among them were specimens who would shoot a suspect before talking.

We walked across the old fairground and then towards north as the world slept on either side of the empty road. After crossing the irrigation canal near Shyambati, we turned right. The vast empty tract of undulating land in front of us was washed by a gossamer silvery light as water gurgled in the canal flowing alongside. We crossed the empty patch of barren land that served as an open-air crematorium for the villages around. Scattered remains of burnt wood and memories of the few men and women who we had accompanied in their last journey during our brief adult life made our feet heavier.

A few dim electric lights were seen in the desolate Prantik rail station far away on the other side of the river Kopai. The station had hardly anyone even in daytime. We walked along the pathway beside the rail track until we reached the river. Kopai lay much below with a stream or two of gleaming molten silver shining in the moonlight. The absolute silence wasn’t broken by even a bird’s warble. It was pure bliss; we were not going anywhere; our only aim was to cross the bridge and go as far as our legs would take us.

The narrow bridge across Kopai was just a single rail track on girders supported by piers. There was no superstructure, no truss, not even railings. There was no pathway alongside. To cross the bridge, one had to walk on wooden railway sleepers. As we were crossing the distance of about a hundred metres, gusts of wind swept our faces. 

And when we were half-way down, we saw a train hurtling towards us from the opposite side at a tremendous speed. The circular headlight of the engine almost blinded us. The riverbed lay 30 to 40 feet below. There was no way we could turn back and outrun the train. Should we jump off?

On bridges like these, the railway constructs small square platforms by the side of the line at fixed intervals. A friend who is a railway engineer told me later it is called a trolley refuge; it is used to keep push-trolleys when required. A little ahead of us on the left there was such a platform, which was the only possible refuge for us, that is, if we were destined to see another sunrise. We ran towards the oncoming train as fast as we could, looking directly at its blazing cyclops eye. We had to reach the platform before the train did, all the while hoping there would be no missteps. It was perhaps the longest 10 seconds in my life, but we managed to reach, as you would have guessed.

But reaching the trolley refuge was not the end of our trouble. The platform was shaking violently, with an amplitude of maybe, a foot. We would have been thrown off if there hadn’t been a steel parapet on three sides of the platform. We grabbed the railings and hung on for our life.

It was a goods train, which means it had at least 40 wagons. It took an eternity to cross the bridge as we danced hip-hop on the platform. However, before we could breathe out a sigh of relief, a new problem arose. A strong beam of torchlight fell on us and we saw—to our horror—two armed policemen standing on the ledge behind the guard’s coach, one holding the torch, and the other taking aim at us with a rifle. We jumped and lay down as fast as we could. Bonu, an avid NCC cadet, said under his breath, ‘Three-naught-three.”

Whether he was correct or not in identifying the calibre of the gun, as we ducked, we would have been hidden from the policemen’s view. 

Before returning to our hostel, we did see the sun rise! h

 

01 August 2021