‘No, Babuji. Who will give his daughter to a budmash? I have to get my pleasure where I can get it.’

‘Do you get much of it?’

‘Sometimes . . . When I go to Ferozepur for a hearing and if I save money from lawyers and their clerks, I have a good time. I make a bargain for the whole night. Women think, as with other men, that means two, or at the most three times.’ He twirled his moustache. ‘But when Juggut Singh leaves them, they cry “hai, hai”, touch their ears, say “toba, toba” and beg me in the name of God to leave them and take the money back.’

Iqbal knew it was a lie. Most young men talked like that.

‘When you get married, you will find your wife a match for you,’ Iqbal said. ‘You will be holding your ears and saying “toba, toba”.’

‘There is no fun in marriage, Babuji. Where is the time or place for fun? In summer, everyone sleeps out in the open and all you can do is to slip away for a little while and get over with things before your relations miss you. In winter, men and women sleep separately. You have to pretend to answer the call of nature at the same time at night.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it, without being married.’

Jugga laughed. ‘I don’t keep my eyes shut. Besides, even if I am not married, I do a married man’s work.’

‘You also answer calls of nature by arrangement?’

Jugga laughed louder. ‘Yes, Babuji, I do. That is what has brought me to this lockup. But I say to myself: if I had not been out that night, I would not have had the good fortune of meeting you, Babuji. I would not have the chance to learn English from you. Teach me some git mit like “good morning”. Will you, Babuji-sahib?’

‘What will you do with English?’ Iqbal asked. ‘The sahibs have left. You should learn your own language.’

Jugga did not seem pleased with the suggestion. For him, education meant knowing English. Clerks and letter writers who wrote Urdu or Gurmukhi were literate, but not educated.

‘I can learn that from anyone. Bhai Meet Singh has promised to teach me Gurumukhi, but I never seem to get started. Babuji, how many classes have you read up to? You must have passed the tenth?’

Tenth was the school-leaving examination.

‘Yes, I have passed the tenth. Actually I have passed sixteen.’

‘Sixteen! Wah, wah! I have never met anyone who has done that. In our village only Ram Lal has done four. Now he is dead, the only one who can read anything is Meet Singh. In the neighbouring villages they haven’t even got a bhai. Our Inspector Sahib has only read up to seven and the Deputy Sahib to ten. Sixteen! You must have lots of brain.’

Iqbal felt embarrassed at the effusive compliments.