“2 ghante late hai"
uttered the man sitting at the
railway inquiry counter like a trained android.
My heart sank deeper hearing this,
as i trudged out of the queue with a heart heavier than my suitcase. Life’s
tough.
I looked at Jadda, my roommate for
the past 3 years at the college hostel. Nobody knew why he was called jadda,
which was of course not his real name. May be because the name suited his
personality well. Jadda as u could expect from his name, had features that were
anything from remotely handsome. This 6’ 2” lanky lad had often been approached
by the local Raamleela organizers obviously for a role of some
general in the Ravan’s army) but jadda would brush off the proposals with a
“Studies first, showbiz can come later” Heh!
Even the “Red n white” smokers would
have fainted at the sight of jadda up close at night.
Well this story is not jadda’s modeling portfolio so I’ll
cease elaborating on his looks. He was the only one who came all the way from
the hostel to see me off in such a spine chilling winter night.
Jadda was indeed a nice guy, nicer
to me
There he was standing at a distance
guarding my suitcase n bag which had a bottle of water pushed in to side pocket
and a chain-n-lock in the front.
“Arey yaar 2 ghante late hai train, (the train is 2 hrs
late)
I bemoaned.
I had to reach Ahmedabad the next
day to attend my IIM interview on 2nd of March obviously one of the biggest
days in my life.
“It seems the Biharis have hijacked
the train” he sniggered
Actually the train originated from
some place in North Bihar to Ahmedabad, The long distance train was bound to
get late in winters. And tonight was one of those nights
After analyzing the situation I told
jadda in a polite and formal tone
“Jadde u go back to the hostel yaar. It’ll get pretty late
and it’s getting colder by the minute. I’ll call you once I reach ahemedabad.
OK??”
Jadda was a bit reluctant initially
but I managed to send him back to the hostel eventually. I knew his whole
family would have to adorn the “hot seat” at KBC to pay the auto late night for
a ride to the college hostel.
I picked my suitcase and bag as
jadda departed and ambled towards the platform. The nip in the breeze had a
sting in it, which I felt each time it intruded my jacket, aided by the malfunctioning
zipper, It was time for Pink Floyd to operate, who were hitherto screwing
tight their guitars waiting for me to hit the play button of my Walkman. Soon I
plugged my ears and the melody flowed.
In one hand I had the suitcase,
which contained all the ammunition I needed to sell myself to the interview
panel in an effort to fool or euphemistically speaking convince them to let me
in their premier institution, and a rolled up ‘TOI’ in the other.
The suitcase contained everything
ranging from certificates of a rhyming competition won in the kindergarten (the
number of participants was three which was set to become 3 million when I face
the panel) to the internship done at BHEL in my 3rd year of engineering.
The bag contained a pair of brand
new formal shirts, which I bought for wearing to the interview. Though the pair
I got for just 600 it was extravagance by my standards. I am not fishing
for sympathy here, I know there were hundreds of other poor students who were
working their asses off at different IITs, lying prostate before their parents’
passport size photos each morning, after taking a lifebuoy bath and diving in
to the pile of books.
And here I was just another ordinary
student at just another college
You would find Mithun chakrawarty on
the cover page of Filmfare more often than you would find me with books. But I
was hopeful that I would at least do something good with my life after I
complete my degree.
All in vain as 9/11 made sure that
I didn’t have a job offer because of the recession which ensued after
the top floor of the twin towers kissed ground zero and the Amreekans began
irrigating the Afghani land by sprinkling life size bombs. Or I guess it was
coz of some dot com crash or something, we students hardly cared.
Even BHEL showed me a middle finger.
The IIM call was the only high point
in my career (hitherto), which could also go in vain if I don’t convert the
call. And Hence I was accompanied by a truckload of expectations.
I was stirring the cappuccino (I
ordered it to celebrate the fact that I learnt to pronounce it correctly
recently) endlessly till it formed a whirlpool as all these thoughts were
stirring me up. At least I could fulfill one guy’s expectation, that was the
coffee boy at the stall waiting patiently for me to pull out a 10 rupee note
and hand it over to him.
It was still about an hour or so for
the train to arrive. It seemed that the passengers were pushing the train all
the way from Bihar.
I thought of looking at the
reservation chart to look for the F’s (females) in my coach. But to my disgust,
there was an array of M’s interspersed with few F’s, that too 40+, on the sheet
of cheap quality paper pasted on the notice board called the reservation chart.
After checking the last name which
also had an ‘M’ in the column, I yelled a common Hindi gaali(expletive)
starting from the same letter.
I retraced my steps back to where my
luggage was kept near the bench.
I couldn’t digest this,
for it was really strange to have no young females in the bogey, So many male
passengers, all boarding from the same station and alighting at Ahmedabad. It
couldn’t have been a ‘Baraat’ as without females it would sound like a baaraat
for a gay marriage, the concept which was not all that popular in our country.
Nevertheless I waited for the train…
Still 15 minutes to go before the
aging monster arrives crawling on the rails.
The night was getting more seductive
by the minute, as a cheapster poet would express it - “There is nothing more
“HOT” than a chilly winter night” And my teeth were like a morse code machine,
punching the code into thin air cuz of the spine chilling winter. Kitt kitt
kittt….
As the human count on the platform
became sparse, the canines started patrolling the platform with their tails up.
Dogs added the required Indian ness to the platform landscape.
One of them looked at me
inquisitively and after a moment joined its pack, which was howling together at
a distance.
In spite of all the atheism and
rationale I bred in myself all these years, I was still feeling really
uncomfortable with a pack of dogs howling at a distance for no reason. It was a
bad omen and I had an IIM interview 2 days from now.
It was the 2nd weird thing to happen
I didn’t know what was to follow…
The horn of the train arrested such
thoughts to proliferate in my mind. I stood by the LED display, which read
“S6”.
Coolies appeared from thin air
(probably mutated from the dogs) to look for incapable passengers. A bunch of
frenetic red shirted coolies crowded near the S5 coach as if they got the news
that all the inmates of a old age home were returning from a excursion trip,
sponsored by help age India.
I entered the coach and reached my
berth to see the interiors of the coach saffronized….I had my doubts cleared.
The reason why there was a barrage of male names on the reservation chart - A
whole group of middle to old age people were returning or going on a pilgrimage
or probably some religious rally. Well by the worn out looks I could guess
easily that they were retreating. With my least bothered self I made myself
comfortable on my berth after chaining the luggage to the hooks below.
As I was about to doze off…my cell
phone rang. It was my mom calling. I had informed her about the delay earlier.
She was awake as it was the exam time on (IIM Interview) I picked up the phone.
“Beta!!
Train aayee ki nahee??”
“Maa train
me hi baithaa hoon abhi bas chalne hi waali hai”
I sat upright to gobble up maximum
network coverage.
“chalo theek hai!! Waise beta tumko jyaada pata hai lekin
thodaa dhyaan se dena interview unki koi baat kaatna mat.aur nervous mat
honaa..”
I was listening like a 4 year old.
Whatever she told me was echoed a zillion times before by a million people but
the motherly affection and concern in those words were good enough to choke me
up. .
“Haaa maaaa…..”
I could barely speak..as she went on
mentioning the do’s and don’ts to follow at the interview. but I was not
listening,but her words were ramming the back of my mind…clearly 2nd march was
a big big day for me and my family..
After some more informal talk I hung
up…and slowly I drifted off.
- 28th Feb 2002
I woke up rubbing my eyes as I found
the train stationary. With a yawn I checked with my wristwatch, it was about
7:45 a.m. As I lifted the window up, a cold and spine-chilling gust of air
greeted me. I could see the sun was not out yet for some unknown reason, could
be the early morning cloud cover.
The train was not supposed to halt
for so long at such a small station. May be some train crossing I thought…I
could hear some raised voices from a distance. Probably some dispute. I was not
concerned as I was looking for any chaiwallah to walk by my window…
Then I saw a man wrapped up in a
shawl, probably hiding something inside, coming towards our coach from a
distance. I looked him in his eyes as he came closer.
His eyes were like he hadn’t slept
for decades. Such creepy eyes were they…I asked him casually
“Kaun saa station hai bhaiyaa.??” (Which station is it?)
He replied in an eerily calm voice
“Godhra
