Bhowani Junction
John Masters
Language: English
Pages: 316
ISBN: B01N1HYIQQ
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
First published in Great Britain in 1954 by Michael Joseph.
This edition published 2001 by Souvenir Press.
This ebook edition first published in 2012
Magnificent novel of Empire and its aftermath
First published in 1954 in the wake of the partition of India, John Masters' great novel Bhowani Junction has increased in stature over the years. Standing between E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and the widely acclaimed works of such writers as Paul Scott and Salman Rushdie, Bhowani Junction is both a richly intriguing novel and a superb evocation of the tensions and conflicts at the birth of modern India.
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He never pretended he would marry me. He thought that because he was a British officer and I was a cheechee girl I’d do anything. And—Patrick, you’re so determined we can’t change, you ought to understand this—he was right. Slowly, slowly, I did feel I had to do it. Do you understand? Do you?’ I put my head in my hands. I understood, but the tears of rage and sadness were wet on my fingers. ‘So I did. Several times. Then he left Delhi. But do you know what he’d done? He’d written to his friend.
Then I went ahead on the Norton to the station. I wanted to find Kartar Singh before Victoria arrived on her bicycle. Govindaswami hadn’t asked me, a railway officer, to speak to the fellow, which was just like his damned nerve, but I was going to be there all the same. By the time I’d found that Kartar Singh was somewhere round the North Box, Victoria had arrived. I met her on the platform. It was a little after six o’clock; the sun was low and the rails empty and shining. Ninety-Seven Down.
Over and said politely, ‘Mr Surabhai, are you a high-caste Hindu?’ Mr Surabhai said, ‘Yes. But all castes are like one in the fight for freedom.’ Colonel Savage said, ‘Good. Because you are about to be used as a urinal by Rifleman Tilokbir Ale. He is hard pressed. He is a Hindu of a sort, but his caste is medium low. You have five seconds to get up and let these Madrassis go on home.’ Mr Surabhai sat up with a jerk. ‘Wh-what did you say?’ he stammered. ‘What are you going to do?’ He stared up.
Secretly the Communists are also fomenting a mutiny, which Congress do not approve of, having just realized that it’s soon going to be their Navy. But Congress mustn’t disapprove too loudly, or the sailors too will go elsewhere for encouragement. So Congress have been searching wildly for a way to get the strike ended and take the R.I.N. mutinies out of the Communists’ hands into their own, and at the same time to seem to support both the mutiny and the strike.’ Colonel Savage said, ‘Gandhi.
Where the sun was low over the hills of the State of Lalkot. It was a quiet sun sinking in a quiet evening, a warm red sun settling into long sheets of pink and green silk. An engine whistled long and shrill from the city behind us. I knew without looking at my watch that it was 97 Down Express whistling for the Kishanpur road crossing. A bugle blew a short call, like an order in brass, from the barracks. I knew the call was the ‘Orderly Havildars’ of the First Thirteenth Gurkha Rifles. I knew.