Train to Bangalore

On those long-distance train rides to Delhi in the 90s, to the French Embassy/UGC, you often met people from many walks of life. On one such return journey to Bangalore, a Haryanvi farmer and his son get in from a station after Delhi. They are clearly poor villagers, their faded-white clothes, their unpolished language, their lack of confidence, set them apart from the rest of us. Some of the middle-class families in the compartment do not look very happy at the thought of spending the next two days in such close proximity with them. There is a slight tension in the air.

The father and son sit huddled close to each other in the corner opposite you, trying to make themselves as unobtrusive as possible. When it is time for dinner, they are uncomfortable, and finally open a cloth-covered parcel in embarrassment (a parcel I imagine the mother carefully packing for her husband and son) to take out dry rotis, which they eat with an onion, and nothing more. (You remember the beaten rice wrapped in cloth that Sudama takes for Krishna, and then hesitates to give him, ashamed of his poverty). That is their diet for the next two days, two meals a day.

When the time comes to sleep, we all realize that they have only one berth booked. The TTE comes in and threatens to throw them out because the boy is 16 and is riding ticket-less. The father pleads with him, begs for mercy, says he couldn’t afford more than one ticket. Finally the TTE relents and lets them share a berth. For a change you are grateful to live in a country where rules can be bent, where kindness could triumph over rightness.

The next day is a whole day of passing through Maharashtra and Andhra, a long hot day of watching greenery and then dry desert lands, and many stops in strange towns where the heat turns the train into a hot metal box. In the afternoon the train stops for a long time at a station. The father gets out, telling the boy to stay put. After around 10 minutes, suddenly the train starts to move, and the boy sits up in panic. You panic too, the thin line between you and another as always ready to dissolve.

He looks at you, his suddenly-childish face pleading for help, and gets up. You dig up your rarely-used Hindi and re-assure him that the train compartments are all connected, his father must’ve got in somewhere else, and he’ll come walking down here. You don’t know for sure, you are worried yourself, but you want to calm the kid down. He sits down again, wanting to believe you, the only straw he can hold on to. (Oh the utter helplessness of childhood). After an anxious 10 mins, his father comes back, and settles down for a nap on the upper berth. Both of you are visibly relieved, and you smile at each other.

And something snaps after that. He starts talking to you, tells you his story, words gush out, the pent-up silence is broken. He speaks Hindi, though you struggle to follow his dialect and accent at times. They are from a village in Haryana, they are poor. He wasn’t doing well at school, he preferred being out in the fields, much to his father’s consternation. His mother and sister also worked hard, but they could barely make ends meet. And one day another farmer’s son comes back to the village and speaks about all the facilities they would get if they gave a son to the army. 

And his father decides that this is the best course for his son too, he believes he’s an idiot and will never come to any good anyways. The boy does not want to leave, but he has no choice. All he knows is that he’s going to Bangalore to join the army, and that he's supposed to tell everyone he’s 18. He has no idea what his life will be. He misses his mother, he has no idea when and if he can go back home and see her. He has no idea what war is. He only knows he’ll get to wear a uniform and will have enough to eat. He asks you how life in Bangalore is, and you don't tell him that your life and his will be so different, within the same city.

He’s visibly relaxed now, and people in the compartment are also less stiff, you have somehow gained acceptance for the father and son. By the time we near Bangalore the next day, we are almost friends, as much as my halting Hindi would allow. As we near the city, he excitedly calls me, “Dekh, dekh!” (Look, look!) He points out a low-flying airplane to me in amazement, probably from the Flying Club. He’s never seen one this close. You have, but you also smile in excitement, you will not let him be alone in his wonder. This is the last time he gets to be a child, and you will be there for him, whatever it takes.

We reach Bangalore, and he follows his father out into an unknown future, putting on his brave young-man-face when he says good-bye to you. You want to cry, knowing that you’ve done all you could for him and your paths will never cross again.

This was in 1995. In the years that follow, whenever you read of war, of young jawans from Bangalore battalions killed in various encounters on our borders, faceless statistics, you flinch in pain. You wonder where he is, whether they sent him to die too. You think of a mother waiting in a village in Haryana for her first-born son.

You move on, layers and layers of life wipe out his memory, his face. But the other day, on a bright clear Sunday morning of riding around in the sun, you look up from the bike to see a beautiful low-flying plane cutting across the blueness, and you suddenly remember a voice saying excitedly “Dekh, dekh!”.

Oh where are you now, my little child. And then you remember, with a smile, Oh, he must be 32 now, he probably has kids of his own!

Oh, if he’s still alive.