In the shivery cold of December, I was sitting on the bench, waiting for the 'Shakti-punj' express on 'Baraka-kana' Junction, with my colleague. It was a foggy moonlit night. Dense hazy layers of mist had made it virtually impossible to see beyond the few steps, as if nature was committed to facilitate the full privacy to the bunch of beggars sleeping on the floor of the platform. It was midnight time, and I was not hesitated to put-on three layers of sweeter and jackets on me. I was waiting, thinking, and wondering, "How do these beggars manage to survive such freezing winter?". I saw only few small pieces of grimy cloths with them. They must have adopted to such extreme conditions, that must be in their genes. I was not able to relate myself to them, so I had not much sympathy for them either. "If I were in there conditions, I must have accepted being a Maoist, rather than being humiliating and abused every moment", I thought. Then I looked around.
A deem yellowish light was coming from a invisible distant source, and that was only source of light other than moon. I decided to walk around for a while as I was feeling little drowsy too. I left my luggage -- a backpack and hand bag, full of books -- behind near to bench, now I was walking towards the light-source. As my visibility was restrained by hazy fogs, even after walking a while, I did not have feeling of walking as all places were appearing same, until I was very close to place where beggars were sleeping. There were two middle age women, one teen aged girl with her two infant kids, and one boy. I stopped there, and sat at bench for a while; I was facing towards the railway track. All of a sudden, I heard a giggling sound, and then heard some whisper too. I heard it again. I left that place and moved towards the railway track, a person was there across the railway track, I could feel his presence by sound of his foot-steps. He was roaming, and was talking to some one; as no body was around, It looked, initially, very funny.
Every thing was looking very dramatic. I did not give much attention, until I saw one other person restless after arrival of a local passenger-train. He jumped into the train, and was going from one boggy to other; he was pointing his laser beam to the person cross the track from various positions, and finally he came down from train and went across the railway track. After seeing the laser dance for a moment, my colleague came near to me. "Their activities are not normal, and they must be up to something", he whispered. A beggar jumped in front of us all of a sudden, "What did you see? What do you know about things going-on here", she asked. I was stunned. We were being monitored as micro-phones were planted at most of the places, and those whisper sounds were nothing, but, that was because of their constant conversation through walkie-talkie. And we were ignorant to all, so every thing was looking funny. "I don't know any thing", I replied. After questioning to us, she went across the railway track. Fortunately our train arrived after few minutes, and we left the platform in single piece. I was little horrified, but, I did not find myself different from them when I remembered my thought of being Maoist instead of spending whole life on platform.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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