Wrong Turn

Sarah Das Gupta

Word Count 602

After graduating from London University with a degree in Modern History and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education I went to live in Kolkata or 'Calcutta', where life seemed at times to be a succession of crises and panics. My husband, a Bengali journalist, was occasionally at odds with the party authorities over political views and policies. This sometimes involved my being taken to a local police station and questioned as a foreigner and a suspected ‘missionary’.

One summer, a German diplomat came for dinner on his way to the airport and home. After the meal, I accompanied him, as my husband was in charge of ‘putting the paper to bed.’ The driver was new and had only been working for the paper for a couple of weeks. Unbeknown to me, he decided to take a shortcut through the back alleys of the city. The day had been hot and the sky cloudless, well into the evening. I suddenly looked out of the car and was perturbed to see we seemed to be driving into a bustee or slum. On either side of the road were high wire fences with a strand of barbed wire, about waist high, running along the sides. The driver failed to notice a young woman in a white cotton sari with a red border, walking close to the fence on the passenger side of the car. Carrying an earthenware jug of water on her head, she was pinned against the fence and the barbed wire. It could have been a more serious accident had the car been traveling faster. As it was, she dropped the urn which broke into pieces with water flooding over the road. Her sari caught on the barbed wire and ripped, while her arm was scratched and bleeding slightly.

Within minutes, the car was surrounded by a crowd of fifty or sixty young men from the bustee. The driver fled back down the dirt road, abandoning the German diplomat and me to the tender mercies of the slum leaders. I certainly began to panic. I had read my husband’s reports of rioting in slum areas, the burning of cars and mob violence. The car began to rock from side to side as it was pushed and shoved by the angry crowd. My Bengali was very limited, besides the dialect of the young men was difficult to follow. Suddenly, a head appeared through an open window. Its owner seemed to be the leader of the crowd and spoke limited English. It was obvious that, whether we liked it or not, we were facing a prolonged session of bargaining. First, the sari and the water jug had to be paid for. Then, the young woman had to be taken to a doctor to have the scratch on her arm properly dressed. Of course, she would have to be escorted by some of the men from the bustee to safeguard her honour from foreigners. At this the German intervened with an anguished, ‘Nein, Nein!’

‘No, not nine. Don’t worry, only five or six.’ The spokesman promised reassuringly.

At this point the runaway driver reappeared. We finally took the woman and five young men, squashed in the back of the car, to the German consulate. Fortunately, a woman there was a qualified doctor.

An hour later, the girl emerged with her chivalrous protectors. She had her injured arm swathed in layers of bandages and her other hand clutched two brand new saris. The consulate driver drove them back. The German official had to wait two days for another flight but panic, at least for the moment, was over.

Sarah is a retired English teacher who taught in UK, India and Tanzania. She lived in Kolkata(Calcutta) for many years. She was married to a Bengali journalist. While in hospital last September, after an accident, she started writing. Outside writing and reading, her main interests are equestrian sports and the countryside. She is 80 years young.