Train to Delhi by Shiv Kumar Kumar Page B

simple ceremony, Father Jones led everyone into his office in the rear wing of the cathedral, where Gautam signed in a large brown register. Berry put his signature as his witness. The other two churchmen signed on behalf of St. John’s Association. Immediately thereafter, Gautam received a large golden card, which looked like a wedding invitation.
    After shaking hands with the bishop and thanking him profusely, Gautam and Berry hurried across the churchyard to the front gate. Here Gautam showed him the spot where he’d seen Abdul Rahim’s body lying in a pool of blood.
    Hardly had they stepped out of the cathedral when Berry turned on his banter: ‘How do you feel, Mr Moses Kaufmann?’
    â€˜I’m not Jewish, I’m Christian,’ Gautam replied, smiling.
    â€˜Not that I’d know the difference … Still, do you feel any different?’
    â€˜Not quite,’ Gautam answered, solemnly this time. ‘But how did the bishop’s prayer strike you? … Wishing me years of happiness and all that. If only he knew how much I needed such a blessing. Of course, pain for Father Jones is merely living without Christ, not the trauma of a wife’s betrayal.’
    â€˜Religion never gets that far anyway,’ said Berry. ‘But the prayer was certainly very moving, even for someone like me. These people, however, are quite professional, you know,’ he continued. ‘They know how to spout such mouthfuls.’
    â€˜Oh, you unbelieving thing!’ Gautam said, nudging him. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. How would your Hindu priest have done it? He would have just chanted a few Sanskrit mantras, asked you to sit cross-legged near the sacred fire, and thrown spoonfuls of ghee and camphor into the flames … These pundits are real ringmasters, you know, mumbling incomprehensibly all the time.’
    â€˜Bravo!’ Berry exclaimed. ‘Already gone overboard! You’ll make a blooming fanatic Christian, surely.’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Gautam. ‘But you can’t deny that Jesus has been my real saviour.’
    â€˜Here’s then an occasion for celebration,’ Berry said. ‘Even a hot cup of tea should do since the bars wouldn’t serve whisky at this time … I wonder, though, what’s wrong with drinking whisky at noon? Stupid conventions!’
    â€˜I know if you had a pool of Scotch in your house, you’d be swimming about like a Chinese goldfish, from dawn to dusk, till you’d boozed it all off.’
    â€˜What a thought! I wish I had the money to do it, really.’
    As they stopped by a wayside tea-stall, further down Mahavir Street, an outburst of shouting hit their ears—‘Allah-ho-Akbar!’ There appeared from the street’s bend a large mob of Muslims armed with knives, swords, spears and sticks. The crowd was led by a young tough who was blaring away through a microphone: ‘Khoon ka badla khoon! Blood for blood!’ The others joined in: ‘Kill the bloody kafirs! Castrate them! Rape their women!’ It was all rounded off with a piercing yell: ‘Ya Ali, ya Mohammad!’
    The tea vendor, a Hindu, at once pulled down his shutters and disappeared into the house behind his stall, leaving Gautam and Berry alone on the pavement. Before they could flee, a middle-aged man from the crowd had already spotted them.
    â€˜There—catch those kafirs!’ he bawled.
    Instantly, three hoodlums, brandishing their knives and swords, closed in. The first, a moustached fellow, caught Gautam by the collar and nearly lifted him off the ground like a sack of rice, while the other two pounced upon Berry.
    â€˜Spare us please—we’re Christians!’ Berry pleaded.
    The moustached creature now dropped Gautam and turned to Berry.
    â€˜We’ll find out if you’re lying.’
    A fourth man who’d joined the others shouted: ‘Strip