I felt cheated! I was cheated in fact! I know I am over-reacting. The point was that I had purchased a first class ticket on my way back to Hyderabad from Nasik. And why did I feel cheated? Because the Ticket Collector never came to check the ticket!! I could have as well traveled without the expensive ticket. Okay Kedar, enough of grumbling!
So that was that. I was traveling. I had been to Nasik to see my darling nephew. Two days seems such a small duration when you are with your nephew, more so, if you have been waiting four months to meet him! I had just finished reading "A Carribean Mystery". I don't know why didn't Agatha Christie make Miss Marple a full fledged Detective. It is very irritating when she keeps poking her nose in things without any authority. Anyway, it was a good regular Christie mystery.
I got down at the connecting station at 7:00 o clock from where I was to board my Hyderabad train at 9:00. I had full two hours to spend. It was a small town with nothing much to explore (which I had already done on my way to Nasik because I had to wait for a couple of hours for my connecting train to Nasik as well.) So I decided to stay back on the platform and wait for the train there. And I was doing just that!
The railway platform was pretty desolate and dark. One of my friends had once told me observe people. In his words "Observing people is so much fun". Since I had lot of time to spare and since I had already finished my novel and since the charge in my i-pod was almost zero, I decided to follow his advice. I started observing people. But where were people?? And thats when I realized that it was too early for people to arrive on the station and very few people were there on the platform.So I decided
to just sit there and idle around. After a few minutes, the train slowly pulled on to the platform and stood there like a warrior waiting to leave for a battle. There were still more one and half hours for the train to depart. The warrior would have to wait.
I was getting bored. Nothing to do, absolutely. The mosquitoes there didn't seem to like me. Or did they like me? Why would they suck my blood otherwise? Anyway, So there I was fiercely brushing my arms to keep the blood thirsty insects from sucking my blood. In the midst of it, I suddenly realized I was hungry. A good way to pass time I thought. I unpacked the food that aunt had given me. I wasn't particularly hungry but I had nothing else to do anyway and I had to finish off lunch packed for me.
I just had a couple of pieces of roti and subji when I saw a figure coming towards me. Some people had started coming to board the train. Must be people like me, i thought. But this person was coming from the other direction. How did he manage to come from there when the entrance to the station was on to the other side. He must have got down one of the trains like me, I thought. But I had not seen or even heard any train arrive. There was virtually no one on the station; only a few vendors selling batata wada very far. I thought of getting up and leaving towards a relatively crowded area. The train had boarded but the doors were still locked, So I could not get into the train. But that would have been foolish, he was a fellow traveler after all. I was panicking for no reason, I thought and sat there eating my
dinner.
He came closer. From a distant light on the platform, I could see him partially. He was wearing ragged clothes and was carrying a torn blanket over his shoulders with something that looked like a plastic bag in his hands. The light had cast his faint shadow which was faithfully following him. I happened to look at the shadow and the shadow of the silhouette was particularly disturbing. The flowing blanket gave it a very ominous look. I got reminded of the Dementors of Harry Potter. I shuddered at the very thought of it. Then I said to myself, Stop imagining things! Either stop watching so many movies or stop reading such books. I was really acting stupid
Thats when I decided to shrug it all off and continue eating.
He went past by me. I didn't look at him but from the corner of my eye I could see he was staring at me all the while he was passing by me. I didn't care as far as he left. I relaxed. He had gone. But just to make sure that he had gone, I turned my head in that direction. My head bumped into something that felt like a pile of gunny bags and my glasses flew in the opposite direction. Sincerely obeying the laws of gravity, the glasses landed a few feet from my feet. My worst fear had come true and was standing right in front of me. I bent down to collect my glasses, which were thankfully still intact, all the while knowing that the person was staring
right through me. I felt my knees go weak. I struggled to stand upright. Then I decided to be brave and look directly back into the eyes of the stranger.
I did just that. I was shocked to see....
That man was standing right in front of me with tears in his eyes. I was perplexed. This might sound funny but I just could not imagine that the person who scared the hell out of me with his constant I-will-get-you stares to weep in front of me. All of a sudden I felt stupid. He was just a mendicant. I took a closer look at him. He was wearing clothes made out of gunny bags with a torn blanket pulled over his shoulders. It did not require the knowledge of rocket science to understand why he had come back to me and why he was crying. He was poor, wretched and hungry.
Although I had decided to share my dinner with him, I was surprised with the directness of his approach. He directly asked me if I would give him something to eat. I quickly agreed. I gave him half of what I had. Instead of eating there, he started packing the food. I felt miserable. Here I was, forcing myself to eat what I did not want to eat and there he was, a person in dire necessity of food packing the lent food, probably for a hungry family waiting at home. I asked him to take the entire food. His reply took me by surprise again. He said “Magh tumhi kaay khaanaar saaheb?”(What about you sir?). I could not understand this man. He very well knew that I could buy something for myself to eat, yet he asked me that question. I smiled with tears filled in my eyes (although I don’t think he could see. Firstly because he was too busy packing the food and secondly, the station was very dimly lit). I said I am done with my dinner. He packed everything and left after thanking me.
I felt happy, sad, overwhelmed and guilty, all at the same time. I had read many times in our canteen that “A grain wasted is a drain on nation’s economy” and I had laughed many times after reading that. Now I know one thing for sure that I wont find that line on the canteen wall "funny" anymore.
