Bellowing threats, insults, and curses, he thumped a path through the choking throng. Men fell and were pushed aside with every lift and thrust of his powerful legs. In the centre of the crowd, the din was so loud that I could feel it drumming on my skin. People shouted and screamed as if they were the victims of a terrible disaster. Garbled, indecipherable announcements blared from the loudspeakers over our heads. Sirens, bells, and whistles wailed constantly.
We reached a carriage that was, like all the others, filled to its capacity with a solid wall of bodies in the doorway. It was a seemingly impenetrable human barrier of legs and backs and heads. Astonished, and not a little ashamed, I clung to the porter as he hammered his way into the carriage with his indefatigable and irresistible knees.
His relentless forward progress stopped, at one point, in the centre of the carriage. I assumed that the density of the crowd had halted even that juggernaut of a man. I clung to the shirt, determined not to lose my grip on him when he started to move again. In all the furious noise of the cloying press of bodies, I became aware of one word, repeated in an insistent and tormented mantra:
I realised, at last, that the voice was my own porter’s. The word he was repeating with such distress was unrecognisable to me because I wasn’t used to being addressed by it:
‘Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!’ he shouted.
I let go of his shirt and looked around to find Prabaker stretched to his full length along an entire bench seat. He’d fought his way ahead of us into the carriage to reserve a seat, and he was guarding it with his body. His feet were wrapped around the aisle armrest. His hands clasped the armrest at the window end. Half a dozen men had crammed themselves into that part of the carriage, and each tried with unstinting vigour and violence to remove him from the seat. They pulled his hair, punched his body, kicked him, and slapped at his face. He was helpless under the onslaught; but, when his eyes met mine, a triumphant smile shone through his grimaces of pain.
Incensed, I shoved the men out of the way, grabbing them by shirt collars, and hurling them aside with the strength that swarms into the arms of righteous anger. Prabaker swung his feet to the floor, and I sat down beside him. A brawl started at once for the remaining space on the seat. The porter dumped the luggage at our feet. His face and hair and shirt were wet with sweat. He gave Prabaker a nod, communicating his respect. It was fully equal, his glaring eyes left no doubt, to the derision he felt for me. Then he shoved his way through the crowd, roaring insults all the way to the door.
‘How much did you pay that guy?’
‘Forty rupees, Lin.’
‘Forty rupees!’
‘Yes, Lin,’ Prabaker sighed. ‘It is very expensive. But such good knees are very expensive. He has famous knees, that fellow. A lot of guides were making competition for his two knees. But I convinced him to help us, because I told him you were-I’m not sure how to say it in English-I told him you were not completely right on your head.’
‘Mentally retarded. You told him I was mentally retarded?’
‘No, no,’ he frowned, considering the options. ‘I think that
‘Let me get this straight-you told him I was stupid, and that’s why he agreed to help us.’
‘Yes,’ he grinned. ‘But not just a little of stupid. I told him you were very, very, very, very, very -’
‘All right. I get it.’
‘So the price was twenty rupees for each knees. And now we have it this good seat.’
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, angry that he’d allowed himself to be hurt for my sake.
‘Yes, baba. A few bruises I will have on all my bodies, but nothing is broken.’
‘Well, what the hell did you think you were doing? I gave you money for the tickets. We could’ve sat down in first or second class, like civilised people. What are we doing back here?’
He looked at me, reproach and disappointment brimming in his large, soft-brown eyes. He pulled a small bundle of notes from his pockets, and handed it to me.
‘This is the change from the tickets money. Anybody can buy first-class tickets, Lin. If you want to buy tickets in first class, you can be doing that all on yourself only. You don’t need it a Bombay guide, to buy tickets in comfortable, empty carriages. But you need a very excellent Bombay guide, like me, like Prabaker Kishan Kharre, to get into this carriage at V.T. Station, and get a good seats, isn’t it? This is my job.’
‘Of course it is,’ I softened, still angry with him because I still felt guilty. ‘But please, for the rest of this trip, don’t get yourself beaten up, just so that I can have a goddamn seat, okay?’
He reflected for a moment with a frown of concentration, and then brightened again, his familiar smile refulgent in the dimly lit carriage.
