The Lexicographer's Rules, the weblog of Grant Barrett

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

“We heard the same story repeated over and over again. Even the most innocuous of our neighbours, we discovered, had extraordinary tales of 1947: chartered accountants could tell tales of single-handedly fighting off baying mobs; men from grey government ministries would emerge as the heroes of bloody street battles. Everything these people now possessed was built up by their own hard labour over the last few years. “Mr Seth, our neighbour, was a retired official in the Indian Railways. A safari-suited civil servant, he was polite, timid and anonymous. After passing out of Walton Railway Training School, Seth’s first posting came in 1946: he was made Assistant Ticket Insepector at Sheikhapura near Lahore. One year later there came the great divide and Mr Seth, a Hindu, found himself on the wrong side of the border. The killing had started. Sikhs and Hindus stopped trains carrying refugees to Pakistan and killed all the Muslims. Muslims stopped trains going to India and killed all the Sikhs and Hindus. “�Every train from India that passed our station was totally smashed,’ remembers Mr Seth. �Women, children, old, young: all were killed. Blood was pouring from the bogies [carriages].’ “Then one day, a refugee train from Rawalpindi under the custody of the Gurkhas passed through Sheikhapura. Nervous of being attacked by Muslims, the Gurkhas—all Hindus—let off a barrage of shots through the train windows. A stray bullet hit the wife of the Muslim station master. The station master, unhinged with grief, tried to shoot the only Hindu in the station—his Assistant Ticket Inspector, Mr Seth. He missed. But Mr Seth realized that the moment had come to flee Pakistan. He jumped off the platform and ran down the line towards India. There, a little later, he was ambushed by a party of Muslims heading in the opposite direction. They took everything he owned, including his shoes, his shirt and his trousters. “�I travelled barefoot down the lines having only a knicker,’ said Mr Seth. �Four times I escaped death. Four times! I arrived at Amritsar station at midnight, and got a new uniform from the station master. The next day I reported for duty at nine a.m. exactly.’ “�What happened then?’ “�Promotion!’ said Mr Seth, beaming a red betel-nut smile. �I became Commercial Accountant bracket Parcel Clerk, Booking Clerk, Goods Clerk etcetera unbracket. Later I was transferred to Delhi and was given a temporary house in Lodhi Colony. It was previously owned by a Muslim. I was told he had been shot dead on the veranda.‘“ (Source Link)

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This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...

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