“A
4 year old is travelling in train for the first time. Amused by the whole
ordeal, with one finger busy picking his nose, he looks at his elder brother
for help, his innocent God-like eyes seeking answers to questions like ‘Do we
have to sit on these wooden planks for a whole day?’, ‘When’re we going to
reach home?’, ‘Is that policeman
really going to jail me if I do not behave?’ The elder brother, reading his
brand new Stardust magazine only half willingly to answer the pile of questions
raised by the angelic eyes, with a gesture of his fingers points to the
policeman sitting beside them and all the questions are shoved away instantly.
How beautiful it looks!”
Things have changed; the brothers have grown up, the
elder brother is married with two kids who’re
both in boarding schools while the younger an aspiring writer is doing his
MBA from some unheard college located in the distant edges of the city. Unlike
the past, no questions are raised now; not on dinner table, not in the car
journeys, no words are spoken unnecessarily. ‘When’s Mom-Dad’s flight?’ one would say. ‘This Friday!’
and that would be the talk of the day. It’s almost as if the angelic eyes have
accepted the dark silent energy surrounding the place that was once a home. And
the kids, the soul of any home are sent away to get good education. Why do we
send our kids away from us?
“The
train has stopped and sudden brakes have filled the room with laughter of a 5
year old kid. ‘I might have fallen off, mummy!’, he makes a point. Some people
board the train at the station, policemen included. But he’s not scared of them
anymore; the new scary monsters are the beggars who he’s told steal the luggage
and footwear and children who do not
behave properly. He inspects carefully the activities of the suspicious
sweeper who’s mopping the floor with one hand while his other hand is safe with
God. He feels pity for him, but he’s scared to show any emotion.”
Now; now he’s grown up; he’s no more scared of beggars,
he’s frightened of the rich now. He has also understood the importance of
laughter inducing brakes in lives; the silly outings and family picnics or
night-out with friends and a walk with her. One needs a break after a while
from all this unnecessary noise and dirt; one needs some cleaning of heart and
mind.
“The
train has blown the whistle; the elder brother asks the kid who’s busy reading Chacha Choudhary to push the train. He
tries, he tries very hard and suddenly the train starts moving slowly and
steadily. He thinks he has the same power as Sabu has. He cheers like a victorious king and jumps from seat to
seat singing his victory song ‘jo jeeta
wo sikander, jo haara wo bandar’ waking up his father in the process, with
pride he announces ‘I will go to WWE one day’ only to be finally quieted down
again.”
It takes him five years to understand that a single
person even if he’s as powerful as Sabu
cannot push the train to start that too by being inside it. It takes him some
more to realize that you cannot bring change in the evil system by being a part of the system and
though, he doesn’t admit it openly, he knows he as a singularity has a very
little power over the massive train of injustice.
“His
Mummy wants Chai [tea] but hates the
pantry car’s one. She asks [orders] his father to bring fresh Chai from the station when the train
stops. Mister obliges. He watches in astonishment, what was so wrong in this Chai he wonders. ‘I will never marry’ a decision
is made quietly. The train starts rolling in a few minutes. The boy with panic
looks everywhere in the bogey for his father, failing to find him, he alarms
his mother who’s reading Grihashobha ‘Mummy,
Papa hasn’t come back. Should I pull the chain?’ ‘Don’t worry, your Papa is
smart, he must have gotten into another bogey’, says the ever so calm lady. The
prospect of pulling the chain excites him and he starts praying ‘God please let
me have a chance to do it.’ But that’d mean his Papa has to be stranded on the
station.”
In life as well, he will come at junctions from where
he’d not see things clearly, the path will be broken, and not necessarily will he
have the option to choose everything he wants. He will realize that he cannot
pull the chain with his father sitting beside him. He would have to let go of
one of them. He would have to make tough choices. Remember for a kid of his
age, the biggest mystery of life was ‘What really happens when I pull the
chain?’
He also learns that Mummy was right. Even a cup of hot
water is better than the cup of pantry car’s Chai. Mummy is always right!
“His
uncle is listening to the new Sony Walkman; he asks for it and is refused. He
listens to the sounds the train creates, ‘chuk-chuk-chuk’. He finds it
strangely melodious when the train changes its tracks; he tells his brother
‘nowwww, did you hear it?’ He is shooed away. He looks at the fan that is
spinning slower than the fan in his old house. He looks at the lights and the
weird people quarrelling in a foreign language in the next compartment. He
looks at another kid with a strange looking device, that’s a new videogame he
recognizes. He had an old one which got ruined in the rains. Its official, he
hates the kid on the other seat and wants his mummy to stop offering the stupid
guy his toffees. He makes a mental note ‘Do not eat food for two days, get a
new videogame.’”
The kid’s long gone, with his toffees and videogames,
grown up. These days when he travels, he carries his tablet and his smartphone.
‘I’m connected to the world all the time’, he thinks. When would he connect
with himself; his desires, his goals, his life? Now, he likes to travel
undisturbed, he hates people who talk in the compartment, he hates kids who
jump from seat to seat, and he turns off the speeding fan. He’s changed; he’s
more sophisticated and less simple and grounded. He has forgotten his roots, he
has forgotten where he came from; the place with peace, simplicity and
innocence- his Childhood.
Some times when he gets out of his cool properly lit AC
compartment to use the washroom, he stops right beside the gates and as he
stands there, he listens to the melodic sounds of train changing its tracks and
he remembers everything that was, everything that isn’t. Eyes filled with tears
he sits there accompanied with the Sounds
of Yesterday that are long gone to never return. ‘Nowwww, did you hear it?’
He smiles and cries and wonders in amazement and for those moments he feels
connected.
He makes a mental note- ‘Do not eat food for two days,
somehow get that child back!’
kya
hua jo hum itna badal gaye?
khud
se hi itna dur ho gaye;
kya
jarurat hai aise jeevan ki,
jo
hum jeena hi bhul gaye?
meri
maano toh bas ek baar,
jao
waha jahan bachpan bitaya,
jaha
yaadein banayi;
dekhoge,
toh samjhoge,
tum
kya banna chahte the,
par
tum kya ban bethe!
