The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories

The pure, the bright, the beautiful, That stirred our hearts in youth, The impulse to a wordless prayer, The dreams of love and truth; The longings after something lost, The spirit’s yearning cry, The striving after better hopes … These things can never die.

Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who cannot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever registers most tellingly on their remaining senses.

life had since become fast and cruel and unreflective, and people were too busy counting their gains to bother about the idols of their youth.

We said nothing for some time but we couldn’t have been more eloquent.

As children we are all individualists; it is only as we grow older that we acquire a certain grey similarity to each other.

But only yesterdays are truly splendid … And there are other singers, sweeter than I, to sing of tomorrow. I can only write of today, of Pipalnagar, where I have lived and loved.

I decided that one day I would have to break journey there, spend a day in the town, make inquiries, and find the girl who had stolen my heart with nothing but a look from her dark, impatient eyes.

When she saw me, she smiled. She was pleased that I remembered her. I was pleased that she remembered me. We were both pleased and it was almost like a meeting of old friends.

It was a cold morning and the girl had a shawl thrown across her shoulders. Her feet were bare and her clothes were old but she was a young girl, walking gracefully and with dignity.

We said nothing for some time but we couldn't have been more eloquent.

When I awoke on the verandah I saw a grey morning, smelt the rain on the red earth, and remembered that I had to go away.

I was in my late twenties then, and my outlook on life was still quite romantic; the cynicism that was to come with the thirties had not yet set in.

She saw that I was looking at her intently, but at first she pretended not to notice. She had pale skin, set off by shiny black hair and dark, troubled eyes. And then those eyes, searching and eloquent, met mine.

What could I do about finding a girl I had seen only twice, who had hardly spoken to me, and about whom I knew nothing—absolutely nothing—but for whom I felt a tenderness and responsibility that I had never felt before?

Not Sushila.’ ‘Not Sushila.