The Lowland: Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Subhash and Udayan have never set foot in the Tolly Club, a local golf and country club, though they have passed by its high brick walls “hundreds of times.” Their father used to watch horse races within from the street as a young man, but after the Second World War—around the time when Subhash and Udayan were born—the walls of the Tolly Club were raised to keep the public from being able to see inside.

Bismillah, one of the boy’s neighbors, works as a caddy at the club. Bismillah is a Muslim who stayed in Tollygunge following Partition—the violent and devastating 1947 division of British India into two independent nations, India and Pakistan. Bismillah sells local boys golf balls and broken putting irons which have been lost or damaged on the golf course for a cheap price, allowing Subhash, Udayan, and other boys like them who are barred from the Club to play golf on their own—despite the fact that they’re not very good at it. Bismillah knows the boys long to learn more about the club, and he draws them maps of the interior and gives them a tip about “sections of [unfinished] wire fencing where one might enter.”

One evening, Subhash and Udayan decide to try to infiltrate the club. Around dusk, they approach the wall with their putting iron and two empty kerosene tins. They cut through dried-up paddy fields, passing refugee encampments filled with Hindus who have fled from the territories which are now a part of Pakistan. These families have been “stripped of their ancestral land,” and now are forced to live without sanitation or electricity, “in shanties next to garbage heaps, in any available space.” These people, Subhash and Udayan know, are “the reason for the club’s additional walls.”

Subhash and Udayan arrive at the walls of the Club and find a place where the fence is low enough to scale. Their pockets are full of golf balls, and Bismillah has told them that they will find plenty more inside. Subhash helps his brother—who is a few inches shorter—to climb over. Subhash offers to stand guard on the outside of the wall while Udayan explores, but Udayan urges his brother to join him on the other side. Subhash reluctantly heaves himself over the wall, as “frustrated by Udayan’s daring [as he is by] himself for his lack of it.” He is thirteen, and older than Udayan by over a year, but has “no sense of himself” without his younger brother.

The boys are suddenly “no longer in Tollygunge.” The Club is full of lush tree, manicured grass, and beautiful tall egrets. The boys are afraid they will be caught, but when no one comes to chase them away, they begin to relax and explore the golf course. As the boys practice their swings, they encounter a water buffalo and a group of jackals, who begin howling—signaling that it is late, and time for the boys to go home. The boys return many times, and on each visit Subhash collects feathers, almonds, and bird eggs while Udayan practices his swing.

One evening, climbing over the wall to leave the club, the boys notice that the kerosene tin they’ve left on the outside of the wall is missing. Just then, a policeman appears, and makes them empty their pockets, which are full of golf balls. He also takes their putting iron. The policeman tells the boys that they should know better. Udayan insists the break-in was his idea, and the policeman tells Subhash he has a “loyal brother.” The policeman tells the boys that he’ll do them a favor and forgo mentioning their trespassing to the Club as long as they promise not to try it again. Subhash agrees. The policeman orders Subhash to turn around and face the wall, and then strikes the backs of his legs with the putting iron. Udayan cries for the policeman to stop, throwing himself in front of Subhash. The policeman throws the iron into the grass and retreats.