No, it was not like Gurgaon or Shahpur or Jullundur.
The Sickness (plague) had come to all these places. It had come into the
Punjab by every road, and many - many - many had died. The crops, too, had
failed in some districts. Hearing the news about these so-great wages
they had taken ship for the belly's sake - for the money's sake - for the
children's sake.
'Would they go back again?'
They grinned as they nudged each other. The Sahib had not quite
understood. They had come over for the sake of the money - the rupees,
no, the dollars. The Punjab was their home where their villages lay,
where their people were waiting. Without doubt - without doubt - they
would go back. Then came the brethren already working in the
mills - cosmopolitans dressed in ready-made clothes, and smoking
cigarettes.
'This way, O you people,' they cried. The bundles were reshouldered and
the turbaned knots melted away. The last words I caught were true Sikh
talk: 'But what about the money, O my brother?'
Some Punjabis have found out that money can be too dearly bought.
There was a Sikh in a sawmill, had been driver in a mountain battery at
home. Himself he was from Amritsar. (Oh, pleasant as cold water in a
thirsty land is the sound of a familiar name in a fair country!)
'But you had your pension. Why did you come here?'
'Heaven-born, because my sense was little.
