Page:Works of Tagore from the Modern Review, 1909-24 Segment 1.pdf/27

Rh I ran like a mad man through the pelting rain to my office and asked Karim Khan, "Tell me the meaning of all this!"

What I gathered from that old man was this: That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace and that the curse of those heartaches and blasted hopes had made every stone of that palace thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man who might chance to come. Not one of those who lived there for three consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws save Meher Ali who had come out at the cost of his reason.

I asked, "Is there no means whatever of my release?" The old man said, "There is only one means, but that is extremely difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A stranger or a more heart-rending event never happened on this earth."

Just at this stage the coolies announced that the train was coming. So soon? We hurriedly packed up our luggage when the train steamed in. An English gentleman apparently just aroused from slumber was looking out of a first-class carriage endeavouring to read the name of the station. As soon as he caught sight of our fellow-passenger, he cried, "hallo," and took him into his own compartment. As we got into a second-class carriage we had no opportunity of finding out who the gentleman was nor could hear the end of his story.

I said, "The man evidently took us for fools and imposed upon us out of fun. The story is pure fabrication from start to finish." The discussion that followed ended in a lifelong rupture between my theosophist relation and myself.

HE Indian Railways are mainly supported by two sorts of traffic, viz., Coaching and Goods. The traffic which is carried by passenger trains is called Coaching and that which is carried by other trains is called Goods. A want of either of the two is not likely to make any Railway paying. The Railway authorities, I believe, are conscious of the fact, but it is much to be regretted, that in many cases, by their indiscretion, they more discourage the traffic than encourage it. The best way to encourage any traffic is to give the merchants every possible facility in the transport of goods and to redress their grievances. But so far as my experience goes, very little of the sort is being done, unless the consigner happens to be of the ruling race.

The conduct of the Railway underlings, from the Pointsman to the Station Master, is far from what is desired. The Station Master thinks himself to be "the undisputed monarch of all he surveys", and I believe, he does not often remember that he is a public servant, and that he is bound by the rules of his department to be civil to the public. The third-class passengers, who are the "back-bone" of passenger traffic, as the Agent of the East Indian Railway very justly said sometime ago, are treated with the utmost contempt and indifference. In cases of rush of passengers, they are forced into cattle-wagons and are subjected to trouble and difficulties beyond expression, though they pay for carriage by passenger trains. They sometimes even do not get drinking water when they require it, for often the water-man has little leisure to attend to their needs. The principal duties of a water-man at a road-side station, are to cook for the Station Master, to feed his cows, to lull his children to sleep or attend háts, and the public cannot therefore expect him to attend to his station duties for which he is paid by the Railway Company. Of course, the water-man can be seen at the station platform with his coat and pugree