‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ said Netaji, sitting up and speaking in as leader-like a voice as his nickname required. ‘We must get ourselves together. We have to work together for the good of things. We must get things off their feet. And if the old leaders are discredited, it requires young men – young men like – like we have all around us – who know how to get things done, of course. Doers, not impractical dreamers. Those who know the people, the top people of every subdivision. Now everyone respects my father, he may have known the people who mattered in his day, I don’t deny that. But his day is, everyone will agree, now almost over. It is not enough to –’
But what it was not enough to do went unheard. The loudspeaker cart advertising Ease-for-the-Soul Hair Oil, which had been quiescent for a few minutes, now suddenly blared out its ear-splitting melodies from directly outside the shop. The din was so deafening – far worse than it had been in its earlier location – that they had to clap their hands to their ears. Poor Netaji went almost green and clutched his head in agony, and they all poured into the street to suppress the nuisance. But just at that moment Netaji noticed in the crowd a tall figure with an unfamiliar, rather weak-chinned young face under a pith helmet. The SDO from Rudhia – for Netaji with his unerring antennae knew instantly who this must be – looked disdainfully towards the source of the sound before being guided swiftly away by two policemen through the crowd and towards the railway station.
As the three heads (one turban on each side of the sola topi) bobbed through the crowd and disappeared, Netaji clutched at his moustache in panic at losing his quarry. ‘To the station, to the station!’ he screamed, forgetting his headache, and with such desperate urgency that even the loudspeaker could not stifle his cry. ‘The train, the train, you will all miss your train. Grab your bags and run! Hurry! Hurry !’
All this was said with such conviction that no one questioned Netaji’s authority or information. Pushing their way through the crowd, sweating and yelling, cursing and being cursed by turns, the convoy arrived at Salimpur Station in ten minutes. There they found that the train was not due for another hour.
The Bear turned with some annoyance towards Netaji. ‘Why did you rush us like that?’ he asked.
Netaji had been looking up and down the platform anxiously. Now suddenly his face broke into a smile.
The Bear frowned. Cocking his head gently to one side he looked at Netaji and said: ‘Well, why?’
‘What? What did you say?’ asked Netaji. He had just noticed the sola topi at the far end of the platform, near the station master’s office.
But the Bear, annoyed, and annoyed that he was annoyed, had turned away.
Netaji, his lust for a new contact aroused, now collared Maan and virtually frog-marched him towards the other end of the platform. Maan was so astonished that he didn’t even protest.
With unembarrassed aplomb Netaji went straight up to the young SDO and said: ‘SDO Sahib, I am so pleased to meet you. And so honoured. I say this from the bottom of my heart.’
The weak-chinned face under the sola topi looked at him in displeased puzzlement.
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ The SDO’s Hindi, though tolerable, had a Bengali intonation.
Netaji continued: ‘But, SDO Sahib, how can you say that? The question is how I can be of service to you. You are our guest in Salimpur tehsil. I am the son of a zamindar of Debaria village. My name is Tahir Ahmed Khan. The name is known here: Tahir Ahmed Khan. I am a youth organizer for the Congress Party.’
‘Good. Glad to meet you,’ said the SDO in a voice that was utterly unglad.
Netaji’s heart did not sink at this lack of enthusiasm. He now produced his trump card.
‘And this is my good friend, Maan Kapoor,’ he said with a flourish, nudging Maan forward. Maan looked rather sullen.
‘Good,’ said the SDO, as unenthusiastically as before. Then a slow frown crossed his face and he said, ‘I think I have met you somewhere before.’
‘Oh, but this is the son of Mahesh Kapoor, our Revenue Minister!’ said Netaji with aggressive obsequiousness.
The SDO looked surprised. Then he frowned again in concentration. ‘Ah yes! We met very briefly, I believe, at your father’s place about a year ago,’ he said in a fairly amiable voice, speaking now in English and, as a result, unintentionally cutting Netaji out of the conversation. ‘You have a place near Rudhia too, don’t you? Near the town, that is.’
‘Yes, my father has a farm there. In fact, coming to think of it, I should be visiting it one of these days,” said Maan, suddenly remembering his father’s instructions.