Following Ho Fuk’s comment everyone was engrossed in the discussion of the old days. It had become a ritual. Whenever the old people met at any function, they talked about their past. Remembering their motherland and the days of suffering, they became nostalgic. Ho Fuk was listening to the discussion but he was buried deep in his own thoughts. He remembered his mother and his brothers and all the relatives whom he had left behind in China.

He came to Assam during the Second World War, when the Allied forces decided to construct a road from Ledo to Kunming. He came with the innumerable Chinese labourers brought to work on the Ledo Road and entered into a life of untold hardship.

Then one day the war was over.

The commanders of the war packed up their ammunition. Fighter planes were no longer heard screeching in the skies. The military trucks no longer moved on the roads rattling the houses. The frightening groups of soldiers disappeared. The shrill sounds of sirens were not heard anymore. The papers pasted on the window panes to block out the light were removed. And the zigzag trenches that were dug as shelters were converted into mossy breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The rainwater washed away the clotted blood of the dead. The fields that were destroyed by the heavy boots of the soldiers had now turned lush green again. The long road from Ledo to Kunming was deserted and quiet. The war zone was littered with the scraps of war materials and empty cans of food, beer and wine. With the end of the war came the end of the demand for Chinese labour.

Holding his glass of whiskey Ho Fuk sat, totally lost in his own thoughts.

He could not ever return to China. After the war was over he started working as a labourer to survive.

Many years had passed. From a daily-wage earner he had become a big contractor after much hardship. He got married. He built his own house. He was well-settled now. Now he wanted to visit his old village in China once. He wanted to visit his parents’ graves and offer prayers.

‘You too came during the war, didn’t you?’ C Hoi asked.

‘Yes. I was brought by ship to Calcutta, and then by train to Margherita. After that I was taken to a Chinese driving school in Ledo,’ said Ho Fuk, ‘where the Chinese were taught to drive and repair cars.’

‘Those were difficult days for all. But more so for the Chinese. We were brought from remote villages of China. We were deprived of food, winter clothes and medicines. We didn’t know any other language and had to communicate through signs. The most arduous jobs were dumped on us. Most of us cried all the time. But no one cared. It was utter misery.’

‘It was terrible!’ said Mei Lin’s father.