‘Do you speak English?’ he said after a while in the local dialect of Hindi. He had noticed Maan’s luggage tag.
‘Yes,’ said Maan.
‘Without English you can’t do anything,’ said the farmer sagely.
Maan wondered what possible use English could be to the farmer.
‘What use is English?’ said Maan.
‘People love English!’ said the farmer, with a strange sort of deep-voiced giggle. ‘If you talk in English, you are a king. The more people you can mystify, the more people will respect you.’ He turned back to his tobacco.
Maan felt a sudden urge to explain himself. As he tried to think of what he should say, he heard the droning of flies getting louder and louder around him. It was too hot to think, and he felt overcome with sleepiness. His head sank on his chest. In a minute he was asleep.
8.2
‘RUDHIA JUNCTION. It’s Rudhia Junction.’ Maan woke up to see several passengers getting their luggage out of the train, and several others clambering in. Rudhia, the district town, was the largest town in the district, but not a railway junction in the sense that Brahmpur was, and certainly not in the sense of a great junction like Mughalsarai. Two narrow-gauge lines intersected at Rudhia, that was all. But those who lived there thought that it was the most important centre in Purva Pradesh next to Brahmpur, and the words Rudhia Jn on the signs and on the six white-tiled spittoons at the station added to the dignity of the town as much as did the District Court, the Collectorate and other administrative offices, and the steam power house, which was run on coal.
The train stopped at Rudhia a full three minutes before panting on through the afternoon. A sign in front of the station master’s office announced: Our Goal: Security, Safety and Punctuality. In fact, the train was already an hour-and-a-half late. This was nothing unusual, and most of the passengers, if inconvenienced, did not make things worse by distressing themselves. One-and-a-half hours was nothing.
The train turned a bend, and smoke began to enter the compartment in great gusts. The farmer started struggling with the windows, and Maan and Rasheed gave him a hand.
A large, red-leafed tree in a field caught Maan’s attention. ‘What’s that tree?’ he asked, pointing out of the window. ‘It looks a bit like a mango with its red leaves, but it isn’t a mango.’
‘That’s a mahua,’ said the farmer, before Rasheed could reply. He looked amused, as if he’d had to explain what a cat was.
‘Very handsome tree,’ said Maan.
‘Oh yes. Useful too,’ said the farmer.
‘In what way?’
‘It gets you drunk,’ said the farmer with a brown-toothed smile.
‘Really?’ said Maan, interested. ‘Is it the sap?’
But the farmer, delighted with his ignorance, started giggling in his strange, deep way, and volunteered nothing else beyond the word: ‘Sap!’
Rasheed leaned forward towards Maan intently and, tapping the steel trunk that rested between them, said: ‘It’s the flowers. They are very light and fragrant. They would have fallen about a month ago. If you dry them, they last for a year. Ferment them, and they’ll give you a liquor.’ He sounded slightly disapproving.
‘Oh yes?’ said Maan, livening up.
But Rasheed continued: ‘Cook them, and they’ll act as a vegetable. Boil them with milk, and they’ll make the milk red and the person who drinks it strong. Mix them with the flour you use to make your rotis with in winter, and you won’t feel the cold.’
Maan was impressed.
‘Feed them to your cattle,’ added the farmer. ‘It’ll double their energy.’
Maan looked towards Rasheed for verification, not trusting anything that the mocking farmer said.
‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Rasheed.
‘What a wonderful tree!’ said Maan, delighted. He suddenly became less torpid, and began asking lots of questions. The countryside, which so far had looked entirely monotonous to him, became interesting.
They had just crossed a broad, brown river and entered a jungle. Maan immediately wanted to know if there was any game to be had there, and was pleased to hear that there was fox, jackal, nilgai, wild boar and even the occasional bear. And in the ravines and rocky outcrops not far from here there were wolves, who were sometimes a menace to the local population.
‘Actually,’ said Rasheed, ‘this jungle is part of the Baitar Estate.’
‘Ah!’ said Maan, delighted. Although he and Pran had been friends with Firoz and Imtiaz from childhood, they had only known them in Brahmpur, and had never visited Baitar Fort or the estate.
‘But this is wonderful!’ said Maan. ‘I know the family well. We must go hunting together.’