The evenings had turned chilly. Dusk set in early and the plateau of Chhota Nagpur generally assumed a pretty hue. The whole of McCluskieganj was resounding with joy, and then there was the sound of an approaching vehicle. Jack was the first to hear it. Neelmani alerted her artists as theirs was the first programme. But then the taxi stopped some distance away. Dennis and Liza McGowan alighted from the back seat. All eyes were on them. ‘Where is Robin?’ everyone present asked in one voice. Liza was weeping. Dennis, surrounded by almost the entire village, stood expressionless. Mr Mendez broke the silence. ‘What has happened, after all?’ ‘Robin was arrested at the airport even before our arrival,’ Dennis spoke after mustering all his strength. All those present were shocked beyond belief. ‘Arrested, why, no … no … Why should this happen? Did you find out correctly?’ By then, Dennis too had started weeping.
Mr Mendez tried to console Dennis. Then Dennis related the entire episode at the airport—how when they arrived they did not find Robin. On Liza’s insistence, they went to the inquiry counter and asked the staff to make an announcement. They explained that their son Robin McGowan was supposed to receive them. Hearing this, the inquiry counter staff made a strange face and answered, ‘Your son has been arrested by the police on the basis of CID report. He is believed to be a foreign agent. Yes, along with him was an old tribal. The police beat him and threw him out. He is lying outside the portico bathed in blood. ’ It was then that a taxi driver came running to us and said. ‘Sir, I am the man who brought the gentleman from
McCluskieganj.’ It was with the help of the taxi driver that we took the old person to a nursing home. I instructed the doctor there to do all he could to save him. Then we went and met some high police officials, but with no success. They said that he was a foreign agent and, as the matter was serious, there was nothing to be done. In fact, Robin would face trial. We also requested that we be allowed to see him, but that too was refused. Then we went back to the nursing home, paid for the expenses of the old tribal who, though somewhat better than before, was not conscious yet. We told the hospital staff that we would return tomorrow to check on him.
Neelmani was incensed no end. The scoundrels had destroyed Robin the same way they had her father. ‘The old man could be none other than Saamu Chacha,’ she thought. In the dark, anger and tension gripped all those present. ‘What will happen now?’ They all cried—Mrs Tomalin, Mrs Thripthorpe, Miss Bonner, Kitty, all … Then suddenly, like lightening, Neelmani cut through the crowd saying, ‘What will happen, we’ll march on our feet to Ranchi right now!’ Then suddenly in a single voice, they all said, ‘Yes, let us all march to Ranchi right now. We will go on hunger strike and give up our lives even, but Robin has to be released.’
The self-reliance group came forward and said, ‘So what is the delay then? Let’s go!’ But the crowd was divided with regard to the elderly among them. How could they possibly walk so far? Miss Bonner said, ‘If we go, we all go.’ Then it was decided that the taxi on which Dennis and Liza had come would carry the elderly to Ranchi, while slowly the rest could follow. Neelmani said, ‘We will be in Ranchi by sunrise.’