Chapter One

It was a typical winter's evening in Parbatiya and Jimmy Singh was
sitting next to the fireplace of his living room holding a large
whiskey diluted with his usual, "just an inch of water". For the last
twenty - one days, this has been his favourite, in fact only way to
relax after a long day's work at the railway site.

Babul had nearly finished the cooking and being the dutiful Jeeves that
he was, came to his boss one more time to ask if he wanted anything
else before eating.

"I have almost run out of whiskey, Babul. What time is it now?"

The response was quick, a stern and emphasised, "ten o'clock", enough
to make Jimmy realise that his otherwise faithful cook and servant was
in no mood to go hunting for more booze in some unlicensed wine shop
located in the dodgiest locality of this already quiet town.

"So I guess that it's time for us to eat."
___________

Dinner was short and the dishes familiar. Pulses and vegetables, each a
separate item on it's own, cooked with an extra helping of chilly
seemed to be the speciality of Babul, a twenty two year old stocky and
round-faced local inhabitant of Parbatiya, a town located somewhere in
lower Assam, an Indian state well known for it's oil reserves and
extensive tea cultivations.

Babul has been with the North East Frontier Railways for the past two
years now. Starting off as the assistant to an old and retiring
employee of the same officer's quarters as he is now, Babul was
elevated to the status of 'Chowkidaar' or watchman of the place about
two years ago. All the engineers and officers who have used this house
as a temporary abode of residence at some point of their careers with
the Indian Railways, would unanimously agree that the only thing that
worked out perfectly for them in this 'one horse town' was the service
of Babul Gogoi.

The man himself would have one major complaint about the place; it was
located one hour away from his village, which housed his parents and
friends. He thought that the railway authorities were ruthless to allow
him only one month's annual leave and how he would love to leave their
job and simply go back to his life of luxury and content, having a nap
on the fields after drinking 'Taari', an intoxicating bark extract from
a particular tree found only in these regions. But Babul was clever
enough to realise that luxury comes with a price, food comes before
leisure and hence all this struggle.

After dinner as he sat on his bed back reclined against the bedstead,
Jimmy looked around him with held breath and the sheets pulled up to
his face revealing only his eyes and head. His neck is bent towards the
front and his eyes are surveying as much as they could across a hundred
and eighty degree angle. Inside the grey mosquito net round him, he had
cut the figure of a man lost in a forest at night, waiting for the
tiger to jump on him from the bushes.

__________

Jagmohan Singh, alias Jimmy was born in Delhi, thirty-two years and two
months back. Son of a businessman who traded in automotive parts, he,
like his parents has always been proud of his Punjabi origins.

Jimmy's family was part of the community of undivided India that moved
to the Indian part of Punjab in 1947 during the great partition that
happened after India's independence from British rule. Inhabitants of
undoubtedly one of the richest regions in the Indian subcontinent in
terms of agriculture and industry, these natural farmers enjoy a
lifestyle that is very close to nature and natural products.

Modern ways and opportunities made Jimmy's father move to New Delhi,
where his shrewd mind and dynamic character made him the owner of a
cash spinning automotive spare parts manufacturing and trading
firm.

Whenever he was on holidays, the high school going Jimmy would escape
to the sunny farmhouse of his grandparents, located near Ludhiana,
Punjab. The stereotypical image of a happy kid, he would look forward
to the evening, when he would somehow get a chance to steal some whisky
from his tipsy granddad's bottle. Jimmy would share the McDowell's with
his cousin Gurdeep in bed before sleeping. Gurdeep is the son of his
uncle who remained in the countryside to look after the traditional
family business of farming. Modern technology and government subsidies
had transformed the once struggling family field into a flourishing
business.

Even today, when he would be having a drink all alone in a railway
quarter located in some unknown place, Jimmy would often reflect on the
days that he spent in his ancestral house, so peaceful and so free of
worries.

From farming to big city trade and from trade to government service,
Jimmy's lineage had come a long way. Although initially his father was
against the idea of him entering a job instead of joining his business,
the older Singh ultimately succumbed to his son's desires, although
thinking in the back of his head, "one day he will return."

Times changed and Jimmy, as one would rightly guess, grew up. By the
time he joined engineering college, he had shed the turban, the
trademark of all Sikhs and acquired the strong body and tall height
that distinguished most members of this Indo-Aryan clan from others.
After graduating from engineering college, he landed a job with the
Indian Railways as assistant engineer of projects. When he was first
posted in Malda, an interior town in West Bengal famous in India for
their mangoes and pickles, Jimmy knew that he would be spending the
better part of his life as an expatriate in his own country. Time went
by amidst the feelings of achievement and frustration and the young
engineer made one firm resolution in his mind and that was to not look
back at his life thirty-five years later and find that the only asset
he has earned was the meagre pension offered by his employers.
Following the footsteps of his seniors, Jimmy learned and soon became
proficient in earning the extra penny that his projects had to offer.
At the same time, he also considered himself to be a man of honour. He
believed "that extra penny hasn't deprived anyone of his bread."

Parbatiya was his first major independent assignment and although
feeling honoured, he had accepted the offer more because of the absence
of any room to negotiate rather than by choice. Unknown place, unknown
people, the North - East has always been the 'misty mountains' for the
people from the rest of India and Jimmy was quick to think of himself
as another sacrificial goat on the altar of the Indian Railways.

He was married for just over a year now and the heartache was great to
leave his wife behind with his parents in New Delhi. She would visit
him soon in Parbatiya, but he wouldn't have the infrastructure to keep
her with him for long. After all, the railways would put him up in one
of their dilapidated rural quarters that were used by railway employees
from out of town on inspections or short projects. Anyone who has
visited the old buildings in this region would agree that Stephen
King's haunted houses would look like a child's playground compared to
them. In other words, Jimmy realised that it would be a long parting
between him and his wife. He just hoped that he could complete the
project within the stipulated time and that would be around eight
months.

Among all the projects that the North East Frontier Railways were
executing, one was to build the new broad gauge line that would allow
commuters to travel continuously up to as far as New Delhi from
Gauhati, without having to break their journey at Bongaigaon to change
to a broad gauge line from a metre gauge one. Parbatiya would be one of
the stations in between the two main points and Jimmy was the executive
engineer vested with the job of overseeing the project there. He had to
stopover at the NE Railways' headquarters at Maligaon for a few days to
get introduced to the project before heading for his new home for the
next six months.

A small town, considered as being interior even by the inhabitants of
the rest of Assam, the town would sometimes go without any electricity
for 23 out of 24 hours. Bullock carts and bicycles were the usual modes
of transport on the dirt tracks of the town. There were a privileged
few, who would commute on motorised vehicles. Amongst them were those
who had the four-wheel drives, the District Collector being the 'Numero
Uno' in this league. Parbatiya the town was also the Headquarters of
the district with the same name. The current Collector (or boss) is
Chandra, a forty-eight year old civil servant recently nominated to the
'Indian Administrative Services' from the regional and lower graded
'Assam Civil Services'. Standing at 5 feet and 6 inches tall, Chandra
the DC had a prominent paunch for a man who otherwise possessed a tough
and muscular body. Piercing eyes resting above a pair of eye bags
reflected fatigue on his dark and dusty looking face, a fatigue that
seems to have been accumulated over many years rather than a day or
two.

Chandra had cut a very impressive and honest figure in front of Jimmy
when they first met. Honest to such an extent that he thought that his
Parbatiya posting might prove totally futile in terms of securing his
financial future further. However the days that followed revealed many
interesting facts to Jimmy.
"Chandra gets a cut from all the contracts, issued for the development
of infrastructure in the district", said a member of his team to Jimmy
when they were having a chat during one of the umpteenth tea breaks
that took place during the day.

Another one joined in saying, "remember the job when the government was
setting up a chain of new electric transponders? We should have had
about ten new ones in the town by now, but all we have got are
four."

"Yeah, he must have made a fortune along with the minister for power
and electricity of the state from that project."

"Whoever you talk about sir, right from the power minister to the
agriculture minister, they all have got a bloody good revenue earner in
Chandra. The guy's got contacts right up to Delhi and he also has got
the guts to do the dirtiest of jobs with the clearest of conscience.
The fact that he is resourceful is reflected in his nomination to the
IAS. Have you heard of any honest or laid back officer from the ACS
ever achieving that feat?" Jimmy just listened; he didn't have much to
add to this conversation. The men speaking were employees of the
company that had won the contract to carry out the Parbatiya project.
Jimmy's prime responsibility was to ensure that they followed the plan
and stuck to the specifications laid out by the Railways. One of them
was Ramen, the supervisor and the other was his assistant. They were
locals to the area and therefore knew what they were talking about.
Unknowingly, they provided Jimmy with a feeling of reassurance for he
just got the information that he was not in unknown (or should I say,
honest) territory here in Parbaiya.

We were talking about four-wheel drive owners and users and Jimmy was
the second person in this 'elite' league. Although it was a kind of
company car that he had, he could feel the power he held over the
'lesser beings' around him when he drove past them. Honking at the
cyclist in front not only gave him immediate passage through the dirt
tracks, but also the occasional salute from a few admirers. After all,
he was the important 'railway babu', who was on an assignment that
would change the future of the whole town. The young boys in town
started idolising him and some of them knew what they wanted to be in
the future, give orders to labourers working on the tracks, hold and
sketch on big clipboards and most importantly, drive on a tattered old
'Jeep', which was actually a 'Mahindra' make, but all four-wheel drives
in these parts are synonymous to the good old 'Jeep'.

__________

Even though he was getting the taste power, driving a four-wheel drive
and had ample opportunities around to make 'underhand' money, today as
he sat on his bed, the scapegoat of the Indian Railways was cursing
himself for having taken up the assignment. Not because of the
perpetual power cuts and also not for the separation from his wife, but
for something that he hesitated even to mention to anyone, lest they
thought he was mentally insane.

Was it going to be another of those evenings today? He was sure it was.
He did not want it to be so, but who was he to control what was going
to happen anyway? Even the partly effective solution was not available
tonight. He had to compromise with only three large and one small
measure of whiskey instead of the usual seven and that meant widely
open eyes and highly sensitive senses. How he wished that he had
compromised on his leniency ordered his servant to go to the bootlegger
for a bottle.

There seemed to be no solution, there seemed to be no help. He was man
enough not to ask his servant to spend the night on the sofa of his
bedroom and now he was regretting as he has been for the past
twenty-one days. Jagmohan Singh, alias Jimmy knew that he would soon
come face to face with what has been a reality in his everyday life for
the past few days and there was no escape even today.