It was agreed that the two would leave the next day.

Madan went to the bazaar to book places in the taxi which was to take them down to the plains. Most of the Indian bazaar was shut. All European and some Muslim-owned shops on the Mall were open. Nationalist volunteers in Gandhi caps came up the long flights of stairs to picket them. Knots of people collected at a safe distance to watch.

Madan saw the scene narrated by his sister enacted before his eyes. Encouraged by the audience, one of the volunteers shouted defiantly, ‘Victory to Mahatma Gandhi,’ and waved his tricolour flag. A white sergeant walked up to him. The volunteer cowered down and covered his face with his arms. The sergeant hit him from below on the chin and sent him flying backwards down the steps. Two constables ran after him and brought him back handcuffed. His nose was bleeding and he cried like a child. Madan’s blood boiled within his veins; his hands itched to get round the sergeant’s throat.

All that afternoon and evening and the next day, till it was time to take the taxi, they talked nothing but politics. A national crisis had overtaken them and completely swamped their personal problems. Beena did not dare to sulk or even hint that Champak and Madan travelling together might cause people to talk. It seemed treasonable to mention such trifles—particularly when Madan seemed so concerned with the fate of his country and Champak so worried about her husband.

Rumours of road blocks and attacks on trains had caused a lot of cancellations; Champak and Madan had the taxi all to themselves. The momentous events taking place in the country and their own secret desires seemed to create a conflict in their minds which made talking of either one or the other somewhat difficult. They sat in silence at the two ends of the rear seat looking at the mountainous scenery—the lush green hillsides and endless stretches of valley lost in the haze of tropical sunshine. Champak, who normally took this journey badly, was able to do the sixty miles of tortuously winding road without feeling sick. They came down from the cool breezes of fir and pine of the high Himalayas to the hot, dusty plains of the Punjab.

The railway station at Kalka was crowded with English soldiers and coolies. From the hill cantonments of Taradevi, Kasauli, Degshai, and Sanawar, British soldiers and officers had come down in lorry loads to go to distant towns to quell the disturbances which had broken out. The European refreshment room was packed with officers drinking iced beer under the mad whirl of ceiling fans. Madan, who had always preferred going there rather than to any of the Indian varieties (Hindu vegetarian, Hindu non-vegetarian, or the Muslims), went straight to the Hindu non-vegetarian. He asked Champak to order the dinner and went out to buy the railway tickets.