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.
Squeezed between arrivals and
departures, there is a different type of life at the platforms. 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 creatures,
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 the motley crowd of
peasants, railway staff, and passengers waiting, walking, deboarding and
boarding. Also mixed in the human concoction are the porters, hawkers, 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.
The world of misery exists and exists
not at the same time. 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 station sheds—during
the daytime—the hazy blue apron of the winter 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 the 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 to the north.
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 was running smartly to emerge victorious in competition against
the handle bar of the last carriage coldly moving 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!”
The daily commuters were conversant
with this old beggarly fellow’s policing regarding the violation of the rule of
not 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. The hand gripping the door rail and the
legs moving very fast. Time stood still. The young man launched himself but the
spring in his feet was not enough. His knees struck against the foot support. On
a scared instinct 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. The old onlooker hesitatingly
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 someone 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 snares of accidents stealthily laid by the God of Death.
Thank God, 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
to 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 official recognition of his services. Still the railway staff at
Ambala had been kind and considerate in grasping the opportunity of the
Director’s visit and honour the poor, homeless man for his service to the 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 living
Hindus. 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 out almost dead of fright. They pulled
him out all blood stained from the mass of bodies. Blood dripping from the
floors, he was 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 kinds of physical and moral hazards, apart from the ever-persistent
exploitation which 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 the 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 the 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 which 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 him 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 it alive, and for that you ought
to have a social identity. He hadn’t any, so very soon he became nameless. Oye,
abe, chhotu, motu, patlu, ghamchakkar, etc., etc., roll over you to possess
your identity as per people’s moods, whims and fancies. And this is even worse
than being nameless.
He would have lost his name forever,
if not for this wandering mendicant, so prominently bearded and hair braids and
all, who was giving a warming sermon to tea-shipping passengers waiting for
their trains one frigid night.
“We should try to become inshan, a good human being, who follows inshaniyat...”
The orphan boy 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 this 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 and
stealthily, straddling the decades of existence. It was just survival for the
sake of it; like surviving itself was the best achievement which could be ever
dreamt of. 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 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 when 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. A mishap!
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 which accompany and entail official 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 gross 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 a beautiful
moral facade over a period of time.
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,” the trader 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 one rupee coin 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 ennui. Some meaningful outlines were
emerging out of the shapeless identity of his poor, destitute being. He had
refused money for that job. It
appeared too sinful and against whatever notion he had of dharma.
After a few months, 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. India
being a land of teeming homeless masses, someone with a forgotten identity had
lost his life on the tracks, at a distance from the station. Again he followed
the duty, just getting solace from the fact that his soul felt better for the
kind act. He was getting a sensation which even a 10 rupee note, offered more
as a tip or charity by a wealthy merchant in lieu of the littlest of cartage, won’t
give him.
It’s convenient to fall in the trap
of cold apathy because it is easy and natural just like drawing a breath.
Goodness is just 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 take it up. It gives them a certain satisfaction. There is
hardly any parameter to measure it, but it certainly exists.
He knew the meaning and essence of
his name, so just picked up the abandoned specks 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 fragment of goodness,
and held it with marvellous stillness.
As the passing years reaped their
share of accidents along the steely furrows, his voluntary acceptance of the
job, over a period of time, became a duty in the eyes of others. They 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 tracks 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 which 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 shirts, sweaters,
trousers, and shoes given by the 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 oversized 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 the
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!”
In all his simplicity, he had
assumed that the function was for him specially. Each particle of his poor
existence was agitated with nervous excitement and frightful uncertainty. He
was feeling a part of the larger world, not just a faceless dot 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 the 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 the past 40
years. Goodness in practice takes a long and circuitous route, in paraphrasing
however it takes a few words. So the words about his generous deeds 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.
His hands were trembling as he
walked up to the stage. The Director, an enlightened academic man, was
impressed by the gilded caption to the long chapter of this 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 sad 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.
The chief guest 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 which would last) along with the money which 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 the customary round of applause.
Inshan just stared absentmindedly 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 because it seems as if today after years I’m taking
the price for my services to the dead.”
Saying this in all humility, the old
carter 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 platforms,
the Director could not utter a word. Goodness gives its own kind of mild shock
which is aesthetically very overpowering. 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 contentment out of
those rumpled petals and crumpled stalks...and still more as the de-juiced, wrinkly
petals lost all moisture and turned to pieces.
So
he kept on serving in his customary way without any more rewards and without
any regrets from life. He carried his iota of self-worth safe in his pockets as
he moved around earning his livelihood by transporting goods on his hand-pulled
cart.
