Open Writing

As the war neared its end the Congress-Wallahs (Congress Party Members) stepped up their demonstrations for Britain to "Jhai Hind"(Quit India.)

We as a family did not feel under threat at first. Dad who had helped deal with rioting mobs in the early 1930's took no chances and always kept his loaded 38 Colt revolver by his bed at night. A series of events that followed caused us to be more alert.

One brilliant moonlight night Gloria woke me to go and stand outside the bathroom door while she emptied her bladder, a regular duty of mine. Before I got back into bed, I thought I saw something move outside my window. I went over to investigate and was flabbergasted to see a shaven-headed man his coconut-oiled body naked except for a minimal breechcloth covering his genitals, looking in. He was as startled as I was when our eyes met.

"Dad!" I yelled in terror. My father rushed into the room armed with his revolver just in time to see the would-be Dacoit leap over the fence and run across the road. The man would not have been able to cut his way through the security metal grating covering the window but it was a potent sign of the increasing change of attitude.

A few nights after that, there was the incident of the cat

The outside door to Mum and Dad's bathroom was open against the outside wall. The top of the door was not far from the skylight opening above the head of their bed. A feral cat had jumped onto the top of the door, onto the skylight and into the house via Mum and Dad's bed. Its entrance did not disturb them. After unsuccessfully foraging around the house looking for food the only way it could leave was by the way it came in.

In one of its unsuccessful attempts in leaping off the bed trying to reach the skylight it landed with its claws extended on my unfortunate father's head. Dad was jolted awake by the spitting frightened cat. He immediately imagined that we were being attacked. By the time he leaped out of bed armed with his revolver and turned on the light to deal with his assailant the cat had escaped from the bedroom.

Gloria and I, who had been woken by the commotion, cautiously followed Dad and Mum from room to room until we eventually saw the exhausted scrawny terrified creature snarling at us, crouched in a corner of the veranda. For a moment in his fury Dad came close to shooting the poor thing. Instead, he opened the veranda security door and shooed the starving creature out.

When we realized what had happened, Mum, Gloria and I got the giggles as we pictured the scene. My poor father had a sore head for days. A festering sore would appear after which a piece of claw would emerge.

The first time my family was personally intimidated was one afternoon when my mother and Gloria, were riding home on their bicycles along Sixth Avenue.

A group of young agitators on bicycles rode in and around them waving their fists as they called out "Jhai Hind" (Quit India). My mother became alarmed when they started making threatening gestures to my teenage sister. She and Gloria veered off the road into their friend’s the Morrison's home where Mum telephoned Dad at work and told him the situation.
When the men, who had continued to ride around and around at the gate, saw my father approaching on his bicycle they fled across to the other side of the Maidan to the village of Japatapur.

One spring night soon after the preceding incident, I was riding home along Sixth Avenue after seeing a film at the Institute. It was during the green fly hatching period. As I rode under each one of the streetlights I had to close my mouth and eyes and pull my head into my shoulders while I pedalled past as fast as I could to avoid the insects circling below the pools of light.

It was common to see house after house in total darkness during this hatching period. I was still a couple of miles away from home when I my front wheel bumped over something causing the bicycle to stall and I was thrown off. Imagining that this was some sort of booby trap I left my bicycle where it was and fled home. My distressed appearance alarmed my parents as they too imagined the worst.

After hearing my story Dad realized what had happened and took me back on the crossbar of his bicycle. The green flies attracted frogs and toads, which in turn attracted the snakes. We retrieved the dead cobra from the spokes of my front wheel and I rode back home alongside him feeling somewhat shamefaced.

In December that same year during the school holidays my friend Dick Scutt and I were sent to the railway station to meet and escort my Aunt Phyllis and my cousin Peggy. Peggy was on her way home from her boarding school in the hills of Darjeeling. When we arrived at the station we saw that the train was already standing at the platform. Because of the crush of people however, we had to literally elbow our way up and down the platform through an expectant rowdy multitude of people chanting "Ghandi Ki Hai" (Ghandi is here). I was able to catch a glimpse of the Mahatma's shrunken figure in the Third Class section of the train. On our third excursion we finally saw my aunt's concerned face at the door of her Second Class compartment.

Dick by this stage was growing more and more infuriated at being pushed and shoved by the mob anxious to see the object of their idolization. I had to physically restrain him more than once when he threatened to lash out. I reminded him that our job was to see my aunt and cousin to safety and that should he do anything rash we could all be killed. Dodging a few stones thrown at us by the now angry crowd, Dick and I used my cousin's trunk to push our way through the mob before climbing the overhead walkway across the tracks to Second Avenue where we caught a taxi home.

Dad, at this time, was the officer in charge of training raw young village men in manufacturing munitions. These dozens of young Hindu and Moslem youths were housed in a compound on the other side of the workshops to our home.

Night after night Dad would be called out to the residential compound to restore peace between the two religious groups. With the slightest provocation a fight would break out. Once, a young man complained to Dad that the row started when another boy had, as he put it, "made wind in my face."

I cannot truly imagine any other person in Kharagpur with enough respect of the local people to prevent the potential powder magazine of bad feelings between the two groups exploding into mob violence. Dad keeping the peace between the lads inadvertently added to the frustrations of Indians. His well-intentioned actions were seen as not allowing Indians to sort out their own disputes in their own way. He was seen by the Indian power merchants as part of the British Establishment who had no intention of handing over power.

Among these 'Jungly' village boys were a pair of identical Goanese twins. The lads, seen as Anglo-Indians, were constantly being harassed by their Indian counterparts.

One afternoon a group of Indian apprentices came to Dad's office scratching their legs complaining about one of the twins. Dad found it very difficult to pin down which twin had carried out their many mischievous deeds as each one invariably blamed the other. Dad called both the boys into his office and sent the complainants away

"Now! what have you blighters been up to?"

"Well, S-S-Sar" one stuttered, "Th-those f-f-fellows are always t-t-t-teasing us, s-s-so when I s-s-saw s-s-some n-n-n-ettles growing at the b-b-back of the sh-sh-shed, I b-b-broke some off and t-t-t-t-ickled them up their l-l-legs."

"Oh, Lord." Dad said, "One of these days, if you're not careful you're going to get yourselves killed."

"Yes S-S-Sar."

Trying to keep a straight face Dad advised them to leave the office as if they were in tears. Dad also warned them, that if they did anything like that again, they really would leave his office in tears. He was a hard taskmaster!

It was not until after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 that we heard of two serious cases of mob violence against our people in Kharagpur.

The first occurred only day or so after partition was announced. The body of one of our young men was found murdered in the gutter alongside the corpse of a young Indian girl. Apparently, on his way home through the market from working on a locomotive he found a badly injured child and picked her up intending to take her for medical attention. In doing so, in the mob’s eyes, he had shown preference for one group over the other. The incensed rioters hacked him to death and then finished-off the little girl.

Mrs. Egan, a previous elderly neighbour of ours, was on her way home along Second Avenue one evening. Not owning a car she had bought a cycle-rickshaw and employed an old servant to chauffeur her around. They were about two miles away from her home when the unfortunate rickshaw driver was dragged off his seat and killed right in front of her. She was then unceremoniously pulled out onto the road, her rickshaw overturned and set alight. She was then confronted with the difficult task of negotiating her way home with the horror she had just experienced very much on her mind.

Considering the terrorizing and the carnage the Hindus and Moslems carried out on each other, incidents like these occurred very rarely.

© Clement 2006