Maya asked, ‘Who are you?’
Tilottama laughed and said, ‘Don’t you know me? I am the person who resides in your heart and who the rest of the world knows by the name of Mr Vyas.’
‘You have come finally. I want to know the name of the murderer.’
‘His name is Eshwardas.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Shahjahanpur.’
Maya took down the address and the details of his appearance diligently. Tilottama came to her senses after a while. When the lights were back on in the room, Maya’s face was glowing with triumphant happiness. She was filled with the renewed energy of a lost traveller who has found water in the desert.
That same night she decided to leave Lahore and go to Shahjahanpur.3
It was night. The Punjab Mail hurtled along the dark as if cutting its way through it. Sitting in a second-class coach, Maya was thinking about where she would stay in Shahjahanpur, how she would find Eshwardas’s house and how she would avenge the murder. Tilottama was sleeping next to her unaware of all this. On the upper berth, a man was sleeping soundly.
Suddenly, the door of the coach flung open and two men in pant suits entered. They sat down on either side of her, surrounding her. They were English. Maya squirmed. She did not like the way these men sat next to her. She wanted to tell them to move away. The same woman who was going to avenge her husband’s murder was herself scared at this moment. The two monsters, seeing her squirm, came even closer. Maya couldn’t stay seated any longer. She tried to move to another berth but one of the men caught her hand. Maya tried to pull her hand away and said, ‘Have you lost your mind? Let go of me, you pig!’
The man pulled her to himself and, holding her close, said in a drunken voice and broken Hindi, ‘Well, I’ll give you a lot of money.’
Maya tried to push him away with all her force and said, ‘Let go, you bastard or I’ll break your head.’
The second man now got up and together they tried to get her on the berth. Hearing all this commotion, the man sleeping on the upper berth woke up and taking stock of the situation jumped down. The two white men let go of Maya and, lunging at him, started raining blows on him. They were attacking him relentlessly while he tried to defend himself with his two hands. He could not find a way to fight back. Suddenly, he pulled out a knife from his bedroll and, pulling up his sleeves, said, ‘I’ll kill the two of you if you don’t leave immediately.’
The knife scared the two men but one of them was armed. He pulled out a revolver from his pocket and, pointing it towards the man, said, ‘Get lost, rascal.’
Maya was shaking with fear and dreading the imminent catastrophe. But the sense of approaching danger also unlocks the hidden treasure of our strengths. We cross the boundaries of fear when we are confronted with danger and even surprise ourselves with the things that we are capable of. Maya, who till now was shaking with fear, suddenly leapt forward like a tigress towards the white man, pulled the revolver out of his hands and threw it out of the coach. The man tried to bite her hand in anger but she quickly withdrew it and pulled the chain to stop the train. The other white man had been standing in a corner all this while. He did not have any weapon, so he steered clear of the knife. When he saw Maya pulling the chain, he yanked open the passage door inside the train and tried to run away. His friend was about to run when the man with the knife pushed him so hard that he fell on his face. The man with the knife rained so many blows, kicks and punches that he started bleeding from his mouth. The train stopped in the meantime and the guard arrived with a lantern.4
But the two louts managed to jump out of the train just as it stopped and vanished into the night. The guard did not pursue them and even if he had, it would have been almost impossible to find them in the dark. There were potholes on either side. Perhaps the train was near a river. Forget two, two hundred men could have hidden there at the time. After ten minutes the train started moving again.
Maya heaved a sigh of relief and said, ‘God knows what would have happened today if not for you. Are you hurt?’
Putting away the knife in his pocket, the man replied, ‘Not at all. I was sleeping so soundly that I did not realize when these two goons entered. I would not have let them enter. I’ll file a report at the next station.’
Maya said, ‘Please don’t. It will spoil my reputation and cause unnecessary trouble. There is no point in filing any report. My honour was saved today by God’s grace. My heart is still pounding . Where are you going?’
‘I am going to Shahjahanpur.’
‘I am going there too. What is your name? At least let me know the name of my saviour.’
‘My name is Eshwardas.’
Maya felt faint. Was it the same murderer? She now noticed that his face matched the description that she had been given. Her heart trembling, she asked, ‘Which locality do you live in?’
‘I live in . . .’
Maya was crushed. She put her head outside the window and took a deep breath. What was she to do now? She had found the murderer but now she was beholden to him. Could she kill a man who had helped her in a dire situation without knowing anything about her? He had not even cared for his life. She was caught in a
