Trips to the railway station - Part 2

It was a cold wintery morning and Sneh would have loved nothing better than to be sleeping in his warm bed. Instead his father had blackmailed him into accompanying the driver to the railway station for picking up his cousins, who were coming from their ancestral village.

Sneh hadn't met them ever before and truth be told, he wasn't too eager to meet them either. Having had no previous experience with people from the village before, he imagined them as being similar to his maid's children. Simple, naive  and happy; likeable in every way but somehow missing some key ingredient that didn't make them worthy of his friendship or attention. These thoughts didn't occur to him consciously but they were there. They were the reason for his reluctance in picking them up, his refusal to share his room with them, his not telling his friends about their impending visit.

They reached the station half an hour before the scheduled arrival of the train so the driver parked the car in the parking and went out for a smoke. Sneh decided to utilize this time for sleeping. Just as he was about to fall asleep, there was a knock on the door. He looked outside and saw an old lady begging for money. She was wearing tattered old clothes and was clearly shivering of cold. Her hands were wrinkled and her eyes seemed hollow. She complained about the cold, the hunger and her poverty. With outstretched hands, she begged for some assistance.

If Sneh had seen such a sight for the first time, it would have shaken him up without a doubt. An old lady, begging for food, in such a harsh weather is not easy to ignore. But in India, where there are millions of such beggars, one simply can't survive without developing an immunity to their suffering.
Too many people need help and it is better to ignore them all rather than to try helping them and realizing your own helplessness against the situation. Thus, Sneh did the sensible thing and, after turning his head, went to sleep.

He woke up to the sound of breaking glass. Panicked, he looked around and realized that a stone had been hurled at his car.A mob had surrounded his car and was hurling things at it. He could see some cars burning in the distant background and hear people shouting about. There was fire all around and the few faces he could pick out, seemed full of hate and anger. Sneh could feel a coldness spreading over his body. He felt numb and could only look as one of the stones broke through the glass and hit the dashboard. He wanted to run but his legs seemed frozen. Fear had him rooted to the spot and cold drafts of air which came through the broken window made him shiver. He saw the old lady again. Her face had a weird glow about it, her eyes were shining and she seemed, happy. Sneh was mesmerized and afraid. Very very afraid.

"Sneh baba, get up. Sneh baba!" said the driver. "The train has arrived and your cousins must be waiting on the platform. Let's go." It took Sneh several moments to orient himself. His palms were sweaty and his breath came out in spurts. He looked around to assure himself that it was all a bad dream.

Walking with his driver to the railway station, Sneh felt some his haughtiness leave him.
The little kid was scared and had just learned to respect the destitute, even if it was only in a dream.

Trips to the railway station - Part 1

He was nine years old when he first visited the New Delhi Railway station. The dilapidated buildings, the big crowds, the garbage and the paan stains all around him made him question the sanity of the teachers who had planned this 'educational trip'. His batch mates however, were very excited to be there. Many of them had never seen actual trains before, being accustomed to the comforts of Ac's and airplanes. To tell the truth, Sneh himself was excited about seeing his first train, it was just the accompanying scenery that made him uncomfortable. Why wasn't the railway station clean like the airport? Why did they allow the beggars and dogs to sit in the open? His mother believed that beggars were no better than thieves and should be jailed. His father took a more lenient view and believed in helping the ones which needed help, like old and handicapped ones. Sneh wasn't sure what he himself believed.

He would have liked to sit and think more about this but his teacher started their tour and so, he had to move along with the group. The boys lined up one after the other and began moving in sync, exclaiming out loud whenever they saw or noticed something different. The man with a single leg, the stink of garbage around the station, the cries of the taxi-walas, all of it caught their attention and imagination. It seemed like a new country to them. These children of fortune were surprised to see the suffering around them.

Sneh was also walking along with his group when he saw a big black bag which seemed to move by itself. It was obvious the bag had garbage in it. What wasn't obvious was who was pulling it, he really couldn't make out the other person in the crowd. Sneh stopped, trying to solve this mystery. The line continued to move, leaving him behind.

A moment came when the crowd parted and he realized that it was child who pulled that bag. The child was about the same height as Sneh himself. He was wafer thin and had marks on his face. It was obvious that the bag was too heavy for him and all his strength was going in pulling it. Sneh felt sorry for the boy. He wanted to go and help him.

But the line had left him far behind. All his batch mates had moved forward and he would be left far behind if he didn’t get a move on fast. He would miss out on the fun and the refreshments planned for later if he went to help that boy.

The teacher will be angry, he heard a voice say in his head, I can’t do much to help that boy as it is, it’s best I avoid trouble myself. Thinking so, Sneh justified his apathy and walked away.

This is the first post in the Trips to the railway station series, something which I have been working on quite sometime now. Hope you liked it.