One Man and a World at War 191side.” The Delhi- Kalka Mail rumbled in from the direction of Calcutta.
After a while, Sisir “heard the train steam off and then saw a garland
of lights moving away and away to the rhythmic clatter of moving
wheels.”^20Muhammad ZiauddinLate on the evening of January 19, the Frontier Mail from Delhi trun-
dled into Peshawar cantonment station. Mian Akbar Shah, hovering
near the exit gate, spotted a distinguished- looking Muslim gentleman
coming through it. Confident that this was Bose in disguise (and it
was), he walked alongside and asked him to get into a waiting tonga. He
instructed the tongawallah to take the gentleman to Dean’s Hotel, and
got into another carriage to follow. Akbar’s tongawallah asked why he
was taking such an obviously devout Muslim, who looked like an alim
(a learned Islamic scholar), to a hotel for in fi dels; he suggested going to
the Taj Mahal Hotel, where the guest would be provided with a prayer
mat and water for ablutions. It struck Akbar that the Taj Mahal might
well be the safer place, since Dean’s Hotel was likely to be crawling with
police agents—and so the two tongas changed course. The manager of
the Taj Mahal was as impressed with Muhammad Ziauddin as the ton-
gawallah had been, and found the visitor a nice room with a working
fireplace and a jai namaz (prayer rug). Akbar had intended to shift
Bose, the next morning, to the home of a well- to- do friend. But on the
way back from the Taj Mahal Hotel, he encountered Abad Khan, a close
po lit i cal associate from a humble background, who insisted on playing
host to Subhas Chandra Bose. Before dawn, Muhammad Ziauddin was
shifted to Abad Khan’s home, where in the next few days he underwent
a transformation from a north Indian Muslim gentleman to a deaf-
mute Pathan. This was necessary, since Bose did not speak the local
language, Pushto.^21
Prior to his leader’s arrival, Akbar had already iden ti fied two possi-
ble escorts—Muhammad Shah and Bhagat Ram Talwar—for the next
stage of Bose’s journey, across the border of British India. Both were at
that time active members of the Forward Bloc. Akbar yielded to Bhagat
Ram’s eagerness and entrusted him with the task of accompanying