Saturday, July 30, 2016

Daund – A Railway Junction


Monsoon lasted a little over three months in Daund – a small railway junction. Daund was a quaint little taluka which no one visited unless posted forcefully by the government. Daund, back in the 1920s was known to not many, but it sure did have all the salient features required for a countryside vacationing. It had lush green landscapes spread as far as the eyes could see, three tiny villages in the north mostly made up of bamboos and sticks covered with hay all around. There was a humble school, The Shalimar Certified High School, consisting of mere two rooms – in one room neat benches and desks were arranged and the other room the students were made to sit down on the floors covered with worn out rugs.

The two adjoining dilapidated rooms on the extreme east of the taluka were converted out to be The Shalimar Certified High School. There ran a pair of railway tracks cutting the whole taluka into two halves – North and South; only one train carrying coal would pass every afternoon steaming its dark smoke out whilst whistling thunderously to declare its arrival.  

The south of the tracks was what Daund was famous for – The Railways’ Quarters. Those were built by the British way back in the second decade of the twentieth century. It was as if a golden necklace was put on the chest of the map of Daund. The quarters spanned from one corner to the other and was sorted systematically with allocations of bungalows and apartments, for the officers, neatly placed in the better end of the south zone and the humongous chawls for the labor class which constituted for eighty percent of the quarters. The only egalitarian thing about that colony were the walls – they were cobblestones embedded in mortar – and the cobbled streets giving out dark black against a green canvas.  

In 1930, Richard Brown, the station master, was posted to Daund from Bombay as soon as he had arrived after his wedding from England to resume his duties along with his wife. One year later, Ricky came into existence. Richard worked harder and harder for the first three years so as to get a transfer to a better city or, even better, to England. But as luck had it, no such transfers came his way and he resorted to alcohol. As Daund was an emerging junction the British concentrated a strong youth force there.


Ricky grew among his Indian counterparts and a few fellows of his own kind – stuck in a brown land boring white color. Ricky often wondered why his last name wasn’t Andrews or Smith like the other kids or even Patil or Kulkarni like the Indian kids, but he had made peace with his name assuring himself of its temporary nature and that it would be changed once he flew back to England. When Ricky came of schooling age, he was naturally put into the only school available.

There were two nuns, from London, who took classes from grade 1 – 10 for all the white students and would take only English subject for the Indian students. Ricky was better than his Indian counterpart in English and would try to teach them and make them speak in it and in return, knowingly , unknowingly was learning their local language – Marathi.

As the years passed and Rick became a teenager, he had developed into a tall boy with a fluent British accent along with a fluent Marathi. He left Daund rather reluctantly and went to London to pursue his further studies, unlike his father who couldn’t afford to leave his job. Against his wishes, he was sent to London as his father had now started believing that once one is stuck in Daund, it will absorb one for the rest of his life in the lands of absolutely nothing and into the perpetual nothingness. The same shouldn’t happen with Ricky, so he was sent. Ricky thought otherwise.

Ricky grew up quickly and became an automobile engineer, took up a job, married a girl, had children and finally settled down in London. And thus the life went on.

It was 2000, the beginning of the third millennium, wasn’t so great for Ricky Brown. He was an early septuagenarian who had lost his parents and wife and his children weren’t living with him in his house. As the beginning of the new millennium drew closer he felt severe pain in his left shoulder and chest area whilst shopping for the New Year presents for his children in the market and collapsed. When he could make sense of things; he realized he was put into a hospital for a cardiac attack. As he looked around with his feeble vision, he could see his children and grandchildren around him. He looked past the shoulders of one of his grandchildren to notice a huge semi-transparent glass fitted window overlooking the green trees and lawn of the hospital.

He had been there for four days, after everyone had gone, with no nurses to bug him he rested himself in a chair so as to enjoy the outside view through the glass. London was pouring down heavily that afternoon. His old, tired eyes tried following the trickles of water and the patterns formed on the glass before they disappeared after following down. He tried keeping track of every drop until it reached down and he couldn’t bend his neck any further. Amidst doing this and the drenched greenery outside him, he went back to the green canvases of his Railways’ quarters.

Many questions came to his mind raising a big “If” in his journey down the memory lane. He cherished his old colony, especially in the monsoon. The big bungalow he grew up in. How he walked back home from his school along with his friends John Andrews and Ray Smith? He even wondered what they were doing in life or were they even alive. He remembered all those chawls he would cross to reach home from school. The crevices on the cobbled floor with running water and racing with them. He remembered the scent of Daund and suddenly remembered his parents’ faces. ‘God! Dad was so huge and mom so delicate.’ His marriage was the only occasion that his parents visited him and the last time he ever saw them. He hated himself for not even making time to go to their funerals. Why did he not ask them to move in with him in his London apartment?

He remembered about Mahesh, Ravi, and Rohit whom he taught English and learnt their language. They were his only Indian friends. There were times all five of them would cross the tracks or run along the tracks or play with the stones kept between the tracks. The long wait with berries and mangoes in hands waiting for the only locomotive that passed there and chasing it at full speed until the legs gave in.

There stood a small shop across the tracks in desolation. This shop when looked closely was a shop-cum-house with a counter in front and a bed for one at the rear. There lived Ramu kaka who would only appear smoking bidis.  The villagers called him fool and a dangerous man so no child ever dared to go and talk to him. Even Rick and his friends would keep a safe distance. Whenever they used to wait for long hours for the locomotive to pass steaming gas out, Rick would always wonder about why Ramu kaka kept the shop so far from the main market? Why did he live alone? It suddenly struck him that he didn’t even know what did he sell; never did he enquire. Most of all he was answerless of the fact that why everyone was so scared of him and why in the world did he smoke so many bidis? ‘If only I had been more of a conversation striker I would have known him well.’

Ricked cursed himself for being an introvert and today was the day of all he wished he were more of an extrovert. Had he been an extrovert then, he wondered, he would have mingled with so many families who were local there. Taken part in local festivals, which nevertheless he did, but just with more sense of understanding. He would have also mingled with other Christian British families and maybe had been better friends with Mary, his childhood neighbor, and classmate. Suddenly, he remembered a dove like face, fairer than the usual, something cleaner from the lot present but not white – Sandhya.

Sandhya was a daughter of one of the Indian parents who resided in the apartments. She had moved in with her family from Calcutta when Ricky was in grade 8th. He remembered how kind she was to him and helpful as well; when he would loaf around with his useless friends she would sit at home and finish his chores without him asking for them. He wished if he were a more expressing, then the last time, before he was to leave Daund for good he could have made their last meet, under the tracks bridge, memorable for both of them. How stupid was I? He wondered where did the dupatta go that she gifted him as his sendoff present as she had nothing to offer him but the very piece of cloth which left the shape of her breasts open. A dress without a dupatta was frowned upon back then. She loved me! I wonder whether she is still in Daund or left for Calcutta. Would she be missing me, still?


Dusk had set in, a knock on the door broke Ricky’s reverie and as he turned around wiping off his tears he saw his two sweet grandchildren through the glass of the door. Insinuating them to come inside he said ‘Aat ya.’ The bewildered children asked, 'What?'

‘Ah! Marathi. I knew it! You are still there somewhere in me even when all left me or I left them.’ Ricky murmured to himself and laughed loudly with more tears rolling down his eyes.   


Eventually, Ricky Brown died a brown dead, apparently, his last name never wore off.

Monday, January 11, 2016

The Booth

I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. 

"Ten, nine, eight, seven... what do we do now? “He is looking for us,” I whispered to her. “In no time he will be onto our door… and what if he messes up with the booth? What will happen to us…?” I stopped mid-way trying to hold her who just fainted in my arms. The ten seconds were over and the booth was accessed. First she fainted and then I went all getting dizzy and giddy.  

I believe the history that is known to the human-kind, isn’t accurate. There is more to that than just finding facts and writing it; there are the main leads, whom the world knows, then there are the supporters, who supports the lead. There is also a special team, which tries to fit the happening as per the written history; be it five thousand years back.   

Ria, was five years younger to me. My parents said, which I believed incredulously, that she was my birthday present, since we shared the same birthdates. She wasn’t a normal kid, she had big brown owl-like eyes which periodically were dug into pages of unfathomable Math-Science books. She wanted to make friends but couldn’t dare to approach and no one approached her taking her to be a weirdo, leaving her with me as her only and best friend.    

The feeling of being at home was a little different for both of us as unlike other children, we only had our father to us. Our mother couldn’t make it after Ria’s birth, the sole reason for my father to hate Ria. Post mother’s death, dad, albeit, didn’t get another wife for him and a step mother for us but got us an array of tantrums thrown at us post his one-bottle-down inebriated state. Our Grandparents brought us up, especially our grandmother, as grandfather also believed in on the misfortune brought upon our family by Ria, and hence loathed her. Poor Ria, could never reckon what was that she had done wrong, and often, would open up in my arms weeping her eyes out for the day-to-day injustice done to her. “Am I really that bad? What have I done so bad to face such brunt of loveless upbringing?” All I could say, to soothe her, was that I loved her the most in the world and would do anything to protect her, but I was as timid as a rat and couldn’t stop the atrocities done against her.  
When Ria turned thirteen, one month later, our grandparents expired due of an accident on their pilgrimage. It furthermore pushed Ria into a corner of the house making a deep bond with her books. She was much ahead of me and even my seniors in terms of theoretical knowledge and its applications. I, often, would take her help to solve Mathematical problems. The school, with special request and permissions got her eligible for class 12th-Science at the mere age of fourteen; which she aced. I knew she could have even aced class 15th!, after all she was our school’s super kid.  
“They all are using you, don’t you see that?” I asked. I always felt bad that she only had phonies around her who, only for their academic gains, would approach her and then, forget her. “I know! At least this way I get someone to talk to other than you, and for how long can one take your ceaseless boring lectures.” She would always mock making some excuses. I could feel, past her appearance she was very lonely and broken.   

When I moved out, to pursue MBA, at 21, to a different city, she had also graduated in Mathematics and Physics; only at 16. Time and situation got us closer and we knew each and everything about each other. I had also taken-up self-defense classes to protect her from the world. I made myself strong; stronger!    

We got each other’s back: she helped me with academics and I didn’t let her feel alone and left out.  
Ria, meanwhile, had started blogging on various applications and theories of sciences. As fate had it, she got her hard work payed of, firstly, by the monetization of her blog and secondly, by selling it to a publisher. Before I could even grab a job she had become a multi-millionaire. Nothing about which was broken to our drunkard dad, who, after the loss of his parents, had stopped working also. He pampered me as much as he hated her. Thus, he never took any interests in her achievements and never interfered in her life.  
  
As a netizen: incessantly blogging and reading others’ blog Ria had come across a special blog of a secret team written in mind-twisting riddles, which Ria deciphered and fell for its very existence. She searched a few websites regarding the same and enrolled for it, only to know that it was some 2000 odd kilometers and a trek of four days away.  

I got placed as a sales trainee in a big organization post MBA. It was over two years and six months that I was working for this organization, uninterested, trying to hit some irrational targets set by my boss just to have my pockets filled. Over these years, I got so engrossed in the work that I couldn’t give much time to Ria, who had now became a self-sufficient, well know blogger-cum-author. She had left home, for which my father didn’t mind at all, and was putting up on the outskirts of Gangtok, Sikkim. She would do her writing business from there and would earn her livelihood. We both were doing well in life as oppose to our father who had become his own nemesis.   

I had not met Ria, for over two years, after that trek which she took in search of something, reading from an anonymous blog. She had turned spiritual; joined a fraternity of a few Buddhists monks, deep into the woods of Kangchenjunga, practicing tantrism in a lair. Ever since she stepped out, she never returned; not even on our birthdays. I implored her to come, but she would gently decline it; even I couldn’t go visit her as I had to look after father.   

“These are his last days… you got to be home ASAP!” I set a ruse, partly true, to call her back home under the pretext of father’s inability to make it any further because of his ever deteriorating health. His health was deteriorating due to incessant drinking habits but he wasn’t going anywhere, at least not this sooner. Ria, had always wanted to get his attention and love and was ready to go to any extent to please him. I knew only this news could get her. The ruse hit the bull’seye. Ria, initially furious and later thawed, was happy to see me and heartbroken to the unfazed hatred showered from her father. She was nothing like before except for her big eyes, now behind big spectacles. She had turned into a big, beautiful woman with hilly weather glistening her skin and slope making her slender. Now, that I had hold of her I pushed and probed her to the extent to which she disclosed all her secrets. 

‘What...? That’s impossible!” was my first response to her. After a lot of negation and persuasion and also by being piqued rightly, she said, “I’m breaking many rules by involving you into this. It’s a matter of life and death and not a child’s play. We over there correct history. One can assume a body of any living being in the history, mostly animals, and control their minds to set the wrong right. One can, whilst on a travel, can have the vision to look back at our booths as well.”    

“Who gave you all the permission to do all these and why do you all think the history needs to be corrected. Just let it flow like a wild river.”  

“A man is his own nemesis; if not corrected then humans won’t exist; you and I wouldn’t exist. Evil would have triumphed and the Good ones would have long gone without any trace in the history. I had read about it only until I stumbled upon that blog that day, deciphered it and took that trek to change my life, forever! Worry not brother, it is an ancient practice, done in a secret group spread across the globe, across the time zones and your sister is a proud member of it.” She said winking at me.   

“How do you judge who is evil and who is not.” I asked incredulously.  

“We go back in time, study who is closest to that particular subject and incarnate ourselves into that subject. Mostly, these subjects are their pets… and set the events as per our speculated written-history.”   

I persuaded her to show me, to which she reluctantly agreed. She made me make a promise of its secrecy until I die. I readily accepted.   

Meanwhile, father’s health was getting worse and he needed someone to manhandle him. Poor Ria, did all his chores only to get more hatred spewed over her.  It took us 9 days to build the whole setup; we called it ‘Booth’ as it looked like one. She had warned me that no one needs to disturb the booth once we were teleported or else would get stuck with our bodies in the booth lying lifeless. Taking father’s immobility for granted, we teleported ourselves.   
  
The feel of seeing my soul teleport, travel at a speed through a space of varied colors with no air, pressure, senses working; leaving a feast, for the eyes, of these vibrant colors heaving and passing by and reaching the destination in a fraction of second. My first time travel with my sister was to the era of King Akbar, incarnating in his Macaws. We were freely flying in his humongous palace, I was so electrified to see this era. Humans were so different then. Their dress sense, the language, the food and almost everything was different.   

Ria, was happy to see me so amazed and awe-struck with this kind of sorcery, but little did I know that time travelling was an uncomprehending science. She flew me through the markets, cities and the forest. We saw the real Akbar, Birbal and many others. The beautiful queen Jodha, captivated me by her beauty. We spent a happy weekend there and got back home in our real avatars.   
We kept taking such weekend-vacations across different eras embracing the real history.  

One Saturday, we had teleported to 16th December, 1773 to attend The Boston Tea Party. Ria in a cat and I in a dog, happily wagging my tail. “We run through a strict code of conduct.” Ria told me with a stern face when I asked her for how to make the booth and set the exact time. “I’ve already broken a lot of rules for you. I can’t break anymore. It’s not just the happy vacations that we take; we do some serious work. We match history.”   

“Rather than watching and correcting it, why don’t you just tell the historians about the real facts?”  
“Rules! We can’t let anyone use these powers. Humans are full of greed and you can’t imagine the amount of damage caused to the world if it falls in the wrong hands.”   
“…hmmm, so, what have you-all done?”   

“We have helped King Akbar; a colleague of mine was into one of his parrots, perched on his shoulder, in a public rally, took an arrow dipped in poison, coming from an ambushed attack, for the King. Hence, Akbar loves Parrots the most. Another colleague got into Chetak, the famous horse of Maharana Pratap, who saved him on the battlefield when wounded. A few have met and shown the right paths to the eminent scientists and inventors such as Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein and more. I was Cleopatra’s favorite cat and persuaded her to minimize the massacre.”    “…and what about the common people?”  

“We do cater to them as well. They just thank their fortune or their gods. Humans!” As we were enjoying the Boston Tea Party, I saw a vision of my father approaching our room to seek for some help. I looked at my watch on the bed, to fathom why he was approaching. Unlocking the door only to see us lying lifeless there in the booth, he ran towards me and disturbed the whole system leaving both of us stuck in 1773.    

Thinking we’re dead, aghast with heavy heart, he called for relatives and for the last rites to be performed. We had only seven days to return into our bodies before being burnt into ashes. Now, our souls were neither in our body nor in the animals’. I panicked!  

Ria, as always, knew all the hacks. She arranged for a co-traveler from Sikkim through telepathy, which I was not aware of hitherto. That guy, an expert, angry with Ria, took around 6 days to build a booth in 1773. Fortunately, for us, we managed to get back into our bodies before being burnt. Thousands of questions were raised to as when and how it happened. I said we did drugs.  

Ria had to face the brunt of curses and accuses for trying to killing me also. Once, when everything was sorted within the family, she was left with nowhere to go as she had broken the rules and was banished from the fraternity.  

 “You will have to do this for me? I beseeched this of you. I’ve had enough and can’t take it anymore.” Ria implored for the unthinkable with those big brown eyes, looking at me expectantly, fully moist.   

We agreed upon a lair and built a booth. She left to incarnate in a parrot, forever, of an one-eye-patched-pirate, captain of a ship, in Middle-east Asia in 7th century who loved his parrot more than his loot.  

I was heartbroken but promised to protect her lair forever. I didn’t stop her from leaving me, forever, as she had lost everything in her life, lived a loveless life. The fraternity has also banished her. I let her go only to start it afresh, be it in any form.  One month later I was brooding over whether today, the history that we study, the mind-boggling twists and turns in the past which gets us agape, the fortunate things that we come across, some good-signs that we see and believe could be a part of science. We never know who is playing it for us, we must keep our eyes and ears open; signals are coming. They’re everywhere. Are they whom we call gods? I told myself, “Always remember there is a secret team!”     

-Sagar Ghadge