A Day on the Railway Platform in a Small Town

 

A superfast train rubles past without stopping, raising dust and many a wearied feather. Rub of iron on iron. Packs of migrant Bihari laborers with their families descend from a not so swanky, classy train that stops at this not so illustrious district centre. Small people, they look all the same in their smallness. They carry huge gunny sacks crammed with clothes, utensils, flour and rice—the bundle of dreams.

 Linesmen are busy working on a section of rails. Vibrating sounds of hammer striking the rails chime through the cool air. Red cloth banner set on the rails under repair, nearby a man in orange shirt, holding flags, red and green, is looking in both directions for trains on the rerouted spare tract in the centre.

Two students, going to Faridabad for exams, are passing time and beating youth’s over-exuberance through friendly mock-fighting. Jhelum express is late. One of them is blaming the other for setting out late. The hoot of a fast train is approaching. It's all rumbling iron. From the dense green foliage of the banyan by the platform number one, a squirrel is tik-tiking in some serious argument.

A short portly woman clad in a dirty sari approaches the students. One of them gives her a coin and asks her to pray that they reach on time. If they get late, he will find her out in the evening and will take all her collection as a punishment. She is assured of the crowd where she can escape into anonymity, and shakes her grey, untidy, unwashed bun of hair in consent.

 Platforms are a favorite place for those who have lost their minds—or who knows it is actually they who have regained theirs. A woman stares at a point for so long that you fear she will drill a hole in the ground. Smell of pakoras wafts with a pungent, oily fizz. The newspaper stall looks unburdened of its load of morning news. The stationary kiosk appears to seek students’ attention.

Under the base of the footbridge on the platform, a shoe-mender has his portion of the stomped world. Polish, wax bottles and soles define his boundary. A cargo train chugs past at a high speed that is surprising for her lethargic, old woman type bearing. The long trail of faded, beaten maroon cargo bogies raises a storm. Bored commuters, waiting for their passenger trains, look at it with jealousy.

 Life seems on a mysterious pause before hitting the rails. Those who stay on the platforms rarely take bath, unless they get drenched by the rains—clothes, sweat, mud, gripe, soot and all—leaving them more stinking than ever. A fat boy is standing, looking at everybody but still nobody in particular. They have their own world, those who have something to do with a bit dissimilar functioning of the brain. Shouldn't call it malfunctioning, but yea definitely it works differently, taking them into a special world, unseen to the stomping majority around.

 His bottom on a fertilizer sack-cloth and knees drawn up to his chest, a man is taking deep draughts at a beedi. He is aged well beyond his real years. Looks 60, but don't be surprised if he turns out to be just 40. Poverty seems to be in love with old age. His gaunt features have acquired an unsparing penetration, a hawkish tenor, like he will jump into criminality at the slightest instigation.

 And here she, he, o no he, she rather, both in fact, comes. Many a head turn. A boastful, proud hybrid, cocking a snook at the dirt cheap normalcy scattered around. The prince/princess of his/her world goes cherishing a peculiar freedom beyond confinements of gender and social roles. She/he has carefree air, walking and playing two roles at the same time. Both males and females look at him/her with a strange curiosity. He/she moves with manly swag and feminine coquettery. The only emotion it creates in males and females is plain curiosity, even some traces of derision.

Let's call him a he for convenience. He wears a see-through black, body-hugging top. His shoulders are masculine in the manner they sway and swing with each step. Arms are also long, like an attractive damsel’s curvy one, but these are drawn tightly with traces of worked on muscles. He holds them like a lady of grace. His chest is flat and would have passed off as a teenager boy’s prospects of a decent manhood. He wears black track-pants having orange flowers on both bums. His legs move in a feminine rhythm, in tempo with the swings of arms with elbows drawn in and forearms slanted out.

Look from behind and you may think a slim teenager girl is walking with a bit of teasing promiscuity opening its bud. The despos may even get aroused. He is dark. His hair is also cropped midway through the length and style of a boy and a girl. Unlike, many transgenders who jump into exaggerated tones of sounding and appearing feminine, he has left his natural identify as it is, right there in the twilight, no light no dark, no shame no fame, nonchalant, lukewarm, impassive and self-absorbed. He moves creating a wave like a snake-head creating a wavy ripple as it glides through the still waters of a lake. Most of them can't help staring, some even do with a mocking laughter.

 The mother is there. Sitting like all the soot and grime has polished her misery to the extent of bleaching her bones. Her kurta and long skirt are soiled beyond the parameters of color. Her dirty, torn at many places, dupatta is spread in front of her. A child, barely a year old, is lying by her side. It is playing with a plastic cup, nibbling at its edges, touching it with its legs, taking its tiny tongue out.

Wait, there is another baby, couple of months old at the most. It is packed, like it will stay safe during conveyance, only its face out to the big, intimidating world. It is crying. She has put a bottle of milk to its lips. It cries anyway. Don't think she has enough milk in her bosom. A group of smartly clad college girls passes. The one with a backpack of books takes a moment out to look at the unfortunate mother and adds to the coins on the torn duppatta.

 And life simply moves on like it is doing around the globe and further into the deeper recesses of the cosmos. There are parallel currents of agonies and ecstasies at all points and places. Learn to observe it closely and minutely. It enlarges the perspectives. It broadens the range of your emotions. It lights up many a shady areas from your being and drives away many assumptions and insecurities. It trains you to be an aware person. And awareness straightaway takes you very close to your real self. Those who are shaking hands with their true self have the best prospects of love, happiness, joy and contentment in life.