The Platform

Platforms—they are somebody’s destination, someone’s starting point. Many people depart, and many arrive. On the parallel rails of departures and arrivals, life chugs ahead with a determined unmindfulness. There is a different type of life at the platforms as well. It is almost a secondary world. Right in the shadows of the bigger world hurtling with an exalted impulse, this secondary world carries limitless desolation. Severely crushed, trampled and trodden under the furtively commuting and journeying larger mainstream world, it’s a smaller world on the fringe. It involves beggars, crippled, runaways, petty porters, and nondescript migrant labourers who survive like the wayside thorns and thickets along the rutted path on which there is an incessant stampede of those whose lives are not bracketed inside the gaolic strokes of the term ‘platform’. It survives in dreaded anticipation; waiting to grab the fallen crumbs to beat its hunger. Its painful scars lie right there in broad daylight, but are still invisible. To many it doesn’t even exist. The adventurous ebullience and pomp and paraphernalia of the bigger world pass over it like clouds ploughing the skies with cotton-soft ease.

The same is the case of the unlived lives on the platforms of Ambala junction. It buzzes with crowds of peasants, railway staff, passengers waiting, walking, deboarding and boarding apart from porters, hawkers and homeless people and beggars. Lost in this jostling crowd are the multitudes of castaways whom the crippling circumstances force to ride the static back of this cemented space along the clattering rails and nettling wheels. It heaves like a sighful wave trying to tug at the sleeves of the bigger world. It pours like a mournful drizzle to wash the sandy screen of human apathy. It shines like remorseful rays to light the darkest corners.

It was mid-November. With pining pioneership the new millennium had just started. More than the sheds—during the day—bright blue apron of the vibrantly lit sky was more comfortable to lie under. So these citizens of the kingdom named ‘platform’—mired in pain and penury—now basked in open at the far ends of platforms under the unbiased, indiscriminating and warm beams of the bright father, who seemed chiding the cold breeze naughtily sashaying over the plains after tasting early snowfall in the upper reaches of the Himalayas.

Inshan’s hand-pulled cart—on which entailed the fistful of his life (loaded and embaled in fewest of things and circumstances)—was standing at this sunny far end of the platform. The world under the tin sheds appeared unwelcoming, cold, and rebuking. A train was standing by the platform. He looked thoughtfully into the people swarming its doors. There was an ostentatious penchant to grab a bit of space, a bit of foothold, a chit of more life. Then with a shrill toot the hooter went out and with a jerk the train started to move. Slowly...people fought their way rapidly. The last compartment was slowly moving away with introspecting sobriety. The cart-puller’s thoughtful gaze was distracted by a heavy footfall from the other direction. Having run along the stones and rails, a young man was now cascading still faster on the smooth tarred platform. The law of relative motions in operation, he ran smartly to emerge victorious in competition against the handle bar of the last carriage coldly running away. Old Inshan was brought out of his reverie. With agility unfaithful to his age, he rose from the rag he was lying on and ran to cross the young man’s path shouting:

“O brave son...it’s not a suitable place for sprinting and climbing!”

The young man swung around and gnashed angrily, “Enough of it old man...next time you do it I’ll break your hand!”

Those who commuted the place were conversant with this old beggary fellow’s policing regarding this violation of rule (of boarding a running train). He was a particular eyesore to the adventurous types. 

The adventurer just ran ahead. Helplessly, Inshan saw him running to the dangerous end. His dirty, stained, raggish, linen head-cloth draped over his head, standing tip-toe in praying agitation he watched the heroic feat. His hand gripping the door rail and running very fast, the young man launched himself but the spring in his feet was not enough. His knees struck against the foot support. Involuntarily Inshan’s eyes closed. He wouldn’t open them till the train had chugged away. Fortunately, the man’s grip had worked in proportion to the harsh words to the old porter, and hanging on he had somehow sneaked in helped by the passengers on board. There was no commotion of fear around the old onlooker. Hesitatingly the old man opened his eyes and much to his relief saw that the man had been saved. He was all alone in the world, so considered this vagrant fellow as one more belonging to his own family born of inshaniyat and thanked God for keeping his blessing eyes over this inexperienced and immature colt, who had just foolishly jumped into the invisible, inexhaustible, and inexplicable snare of accidents stealthily laid by the God of Death.

Thank God, for on this important day in his life no untoward incident had happened! Today he was to be rewarded by the Director of the local railway zone. Yesterday the station master had called him in his cabin and with dignified confidence informed him about it. One day’s gap between the announcement and the event only explicitly indicated that it was no pre-arranged and agreed recognition of his services. Still the staff at Ambala had been decent in grasping the opportunity of the Director’s visit as a reward function for the poor, homeless man’s yeoman service to humanity.

There was nobody from his lineage he could relate to. Before 1947, his poor Hindu family in a downtown quarter of Lahore survived and struggled as daily wage earners, picking up petty jobs thrown into their beggary bowl by the tensioned circumstances of those turbulent times. Then 1947 saw liberation and the massacres. At one of those long blood-hissing nights, when blood came to be strictly grouped as Hindu and Muslim, they somehow managed to board a bleeding train having more dead than alive. And even those on board had little chance of reaching alive to the other side of the border. As expected, before it could cross the newly created border, it was stopped by a blood-thirsty mob at a desolate place and unthinkable hacking of humans happened. It was hideous ecstasy. A savage delirium. He was seven years old and was lucky or unlucky to survive. Later at some station, he was dragged almost dead of fright. They pulled him out all blood stained from the mass of bodies. Blood dripping from the floors, he was thus lucky to come to Amritsar. He saw all his family members being hastily taken away in a truck overloaded with corpses for mass cremation.

From that day the platform became his home and all its allied crowded phenomena the familial things he could relate to. During his juvenile stage, he grew up doing all types of petty jobs, sufferings all types of physical and moral hazards, apart from ever-persistent exploitation that an orphan is destined to come under. Caught in the eternal encagement of circumstances, he worked as a tea-stall helper, table cleaner in station canteens, dishwasher in railway restaurants, balloon vendor, and peanuts hawker. And when his arms were strong enough to pull a handcart, he became a carter to carry all types of provisions on this small two-wheeled appendage to his beast-of-burden-type existence.

He definitely must have been given some name by his family. It but got smudged under blood clots and flesh in that train compartment. Hate doesn’t kill just bodies, it butchers names as well. His limbs were intact, but he had lost his name somewhere in the gory stampede. How do you keep your name alive? Only others can help you in this by sweetly or sourly speaking it, either in front of you or in your absence in some context. But a name that is never spoken by anybody evaporates like raindrops in a desert. His name had evaporated. Many a time he would think, who am I, and a blankness struck his like he did not exist at all. He still remembered what his family called him. But just a memory cannot help you in keeping your name alive. You need others to help you keep your name alive, and for that you ought to have a social identity. He hadn’t any, so very soon he became nameless. He would have lost his name forever, if not for this wandering mendicant, so prominently bearded and hair braids and all, who gave a warming sermon to tea-shipping passengers waiting for their trains that frigid night. “We should try to become inshan, a good human being, who follows inshaniyat...” He literally stole the word. Kept it safe in his pocket. Repeated it hundreds of times to stamp his identity. And knowing that a name is no name unless spoken by others, he did all he could to be recognised with that name. So he became Inshan, slowly, over a period of years. That was his achievement. He had earned a name. He was not nameless and faceless like scores of other citizens of the platform.

Time’s arms swung silently, straddling the decades of existence. Just survival for the sake of it, like it was the best achievement that could be. It was 40 years ago when he arrived at the Ambala railway station with his pittance of savings on his frail, prematurely withered 20-year-old personage in 1960. His initiation into what was to become the overarching motto of his life happened just after a couple of months after his arrival.

Diwali, the darkest night of Amavasya, is followed by the waxing phase of moony nights to reach the milky night’s brightest cusp in the rain-washed early winter sky. The moon’s unpolluted clarity and cool misty air make the nights smile at their best. During its waning phase after the full dazzle, the moonlight spreads in misty romance over the languorously lying nights. Sometimes during the morning twilight, when there is no mist, it shines like a night sun, casting shadows on earth, beating for some time even the sun’s efforts from below the horizon. It was on one such night that a middle-aged man belonging to some other part of the country was cut to pieces by a train. With disastrous discourtesy the time whirred on it axis. An accident. And a sinister silence sprawled over the scene. The sight’s horrific details struck him with all the fright possible to a human heart. It was an accident; an unclaimed body; so its removal from the tracks and cremation got mired in the usual hassles that accompany and entail public responsibility. It was broad daylight and the body still lay there. It made the tragedy even more gruesome. A policeman, standing as a sign of the authorities’ knowledge of the accident, was trying his level best to get some men and conveyance to take the limbs to the civil hospital for post-mortem.

Coming across the railway policeman’s helplessness and gory apathy for the after-death cause of once throbbing life, it was for the first time that Inshan’s conscience got those initial pickings, which if welcomed and received cordially blossom into beautiful moral facade.

The wholesale dealer whose packages of provisions were lying in the platform warehouse, having paid him some token money in advance, pulled at his sleeve with the attitude of a master hurrying his slave.

“Oh come on, haven’t you ever seen a dead body in your life,” he gasped huskily.

“Seen sahib...perhaps seen too many to ...!” from the deep dormitory of memories, cries, and killings flashed.

Solemnly straight-faced, he gently returned the ten rupee note and offered his services for the final journey of the diseased. The tragedy of these crushed limbs connoted the gruesome massacre in that fateful train. While on the way to the hospital, bloody scenes vividly, massively returned to haunt him. The savage behemoth of memories gripped him so tightly that he went numb. For a whole week afterwards he pulled his cart lost in a mysterious feeling. He had refused money for that job. It appeared too sinful and against whatever notion he had of dharma. Next month, while he was pulling his cart on the platform, he was beckoned by the same policeman who had asked him to take the unclaimed, unidentified body to the cremation ground. Again he followed the duty, just getting solace from the fact that his soul felt some invisible reward for the kind act. He was getting a sensation that even a 100 rupee note won’t give him, offered more as a tip or charity by a wealthy merchant in lieu of littlest of cartage.

It’s convenient to fall in the trap of cold apathy because it is easy like just drawing a breath. Goodness is just a one step away. It’s another matter that we choose to ignore it. It seems to require a huge effort to take that step. Some people but move out of the rut to pick it up. It gives them a certain satisfaction. He knew the meaning and essence of his name, so just picked up the abandoned speck of goodness. May be to keep his name alive; to prove that he is worth it. We explore meanings in life. He too had found one. His was a small world and he kept that speck of goodness. And held it with marvellous stillness.

As years reaped their share of accidents along the steely furrows, his voluntary acceptance of the job, in a period of time, became a duty in the eyes of others, who expected him to do it without even sparing some praise or appreciation for his unselfishness and without harbouring any reservations for their own apathy. Years rolled in this mundane way, interjected with atrophied chunks of accidents which spattered the earth now and then. He came to be known as the man who carried the dead bodies of train accidents to the civil hospital and even performed the last rites in case there was no claimant for the body.

Now after 40 years, his deeds had accomplished the benchmark of a reward. It was a sort of D-day to him. He drew out his bucket from under the cart and smartly, smugly went out to fetch water from the platform hand-pump. Coming back he freed his old tattered knapsack from its smart knot to the axle of his cart. The cart was his profession, his house, his world. Standing with its hand-bars raised on the peg-support, it served him as a shelter that enclosed his portion of the world. During winters, he put a tarpaulin sheet over the whole of it and sneaked into the tiny interior. A plank supported on bricks at both ends served as his bed.

Irrespective of all caste, class and all other man-made differentials, every person has a special dress to adorn for the special-most occasion. He too had one. Or rather he had a choice to hit the best combination out of various items: different-sized shirt, sweater, trousers, and shoes donated by those daily passengers who donated on some occasions with different moods with the same motive of getting God’s blessings in lieu of the charity. Most of these were oversize for him. The shoes, however, should not be too tight or too large; the rest of the mis-fittings can be somehow adapted. These adaptations are what he thought about tidying up. He borrowed hair oil, comb and a piece of looking glass from different beggary neighbours, prompting one of those kind commuters who sometimes spoke to him while coming from or going to office, to say:

“Ho Inshan, are you getting married today?!”

Beaming with shyness he replied, “Yes sahib, it’s as important as marriage!”

He had assumed that the function was for him specially. Each particle of his poor existence was agitated with excitement and frightful uncertainty. He was feeling a part of the larger world, not just a faceless speck lying on the platform. The people who mattered knew his name. That was the most important thing to him. He tidied up with a sweeping exuberance. How blissful the feeling! From the dark corner, which sucked all identity and spewed invisibility, he had been put on a shiny stage. He was recognised. They knew him. All the miseries of life didn’t matter anymore.

It’s very difficult for the world to change suddenly to accommodate such happiness. All these goose-bumps creating sensations were belied very soon as he was made to sit in a last row in the hall. It was some big show for a bigger purpose. He felt being sucked into oblivion again. With joggling force it swept the tiny cottage of his expectations. His felicitation was a mere appendage to the function and that too caused by the generosity of the station master. Still, with a school boy’s eagerness and anticipation he saw the proceedings to make the best of the occasion. However, his patience was wearing thin and for a moment he even grew apprehensive that they might just wind it up without even recalling his presence.

Luck but struck for him at last. The station master got up and gave a nice introduction to his deeds of 40 years. It lasted a couple of minutes and during that period people cared to look at him like a fellow human being. He found it too burdensome, the gaze of the gentry from the better world, and stared at the faded leather of his shoes in embarrassment. Walking up to the stage his limbs were trembling. The Director, an enlightened academic man, was impressed by the gilded caption to the long chapter of his unassuming, unknown life. The station master had handed him 1100 rupees to give as a reward to this poor carter in recognition of his services. Deep down in his conscience, however, he felt hurt somehow, in some vague manner. Rolling the notes in his fingers, he was lost in thoughts as this beggary man attired in his best dress approached the stage. He felt that giving just money (without any souvenir) would be trivialising the silent services of this man. So his senses ran to find something to act as a medallion (the real reward) along with the money that would surely get spent. There was nothing but the bouquet presented to him. He picked it up and handed it to the embarrassed and shy person cowering in front of him, patting him, congratulating him for the show of humanity on the inhuman platforms. There was customary round of applause. Inshan just stared mechanically at the objects of his reward. With an overpowering emotion, he hugged tight the flowery recognition of his deeds and stammered:

“Thank you for the flowers sir. But I...I cannot accept money for it seems as if today after years I’m accepting the price for my services to the dead.”

Saying this in all humility he put out his hand to give the money back to the chief guest. Dumbstruck by the dazzle of this lotus of goodness in the mud of life on the platform, the Director could not utter a word. He appeared reactionless. He just patted the frail man on his shoulder. Putting the money on the table and embracing the flowers, Inshan saluted in military fashion and moved out.

For many days to come, he ogled with happiness at the withering flowers, drawing more juice of happiness out of those rumpled petals and crumpled stalks...and still more as the de-juiced, crumpled petals lost all moisture and turned to pieces.

So he kept on living and serving in his customary manner without anymore rewards and earning his livelihood by transporting goods on his hand-pulled cart.