Pages 314 & 315

Chapter 41: Taking Stock

The cross border flow of the uprooted of partition finally diminished to a trickle and respite from taking caravans to the camp enabled Jagat to go to Cjhajjuwara.  Engrossed in rescuing Muslims he had not been to the bungalow for several months and he drove he felt alone; Beeru roamed in his thoughts because without him the world of high school and college would have escaped him and he wouldn't have met Preeti; how beautifully innocent she had looked when she opened the ate for him for his first tuition at the bungalow; meeting her at the railway station or in the college library; her proposing to him in the hospital bed and the night with Ratno complicating it all and standing in the way of their marriage. 

Lost in thoughts of life and loss he reached the bungalow.  The gat was ajar; wild grass adorned the yard and Ram Chand's roses had tuned treelike.  the furniture, beds, and the kitchen utensils were all missing.  The place had the forlorn look of the abandoned homes of the Muslims driven across the border into Pakistan by hate and violence.  Because of his prison sojourns, Preeti being too busy to look after it, Havaldar Channan Singh and Professor Shambhu Prasad looked after the bungalow.  He spoke to the neighbors and learnt that both of them had passed away some time ago and in the chaos no one had the wherewithal to inform him.

Jagat needed help and drove to the bank to see the ever helpful Partap Singh who, from the moment he rescued Jagat at the arched gate years ago, had become his guardian angel.  

    "Partap Singh is at home recuperating from injuries suffered while saving a group of Chajjuwara Muslims from a frenzied mob," the sentry outside the bank told Jagat.

    "Him too?"

Shaking his head walking away Jagat remembered that from the bank the road to Partap's home passed by the college.  He remembered Vice Principal Sujaan Singh's offer of a teaching position made at Preeti's funeral.

    "The students loved you.  We the faculty were jealous and hated you.  And as for your unease about teaching English, the imperial language, the country is independent and English is just another foreign language now albeit of former colonizers'," had said Sujaan.  Preeti was no more and so was her salary.  Jagat turned onto the college drive say.  As he approached the Principal's office Shive Singh stood up, his wrinkled but usually smiling face a picture of deep grief.

    "Sahib, Bibi Ji, I'm sorry.  She treated this poor peon like her father.  Once she told me she saw her dad in me."

    "Yes, she named our son Shiv Ram after you and her father, Shive before Ram," said Jagat patting his shoulder before entering the Principal's Office.

    "Been through a lot Jagat, a cup of tea?" asked Sujaan.

    "Sure and I'll take the teaching position you'd offered too because the family needs the money.  The independence struggle is over and the way things are going I'm redundant for the country anyway."

    "You'd always be needed for the country, definitely for the college.  I'll speak to the College Board, a mere formality."

Jagat immediately drove away to stop the Principal's Office and the college thrusting his mind into memories of Preeti, his own past and the country's freedom struggle.  The convulsion of partition had steeped him in pessimism; the corruption of the Congress by the newly joined opportunists had pushed him into depression.