"Here is the test to find whether your
mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't."
- Richard Bach
Today again I was a little late to get out of house in the morning; today again
I would just barely reach the railway station in time for my 9:31 train to
Thane. Today again I am probably going to bash into a couple of people, at the
speed that I am walking. Today again I would partially turn at them, still
running at the same time, mumble my apologies and hurry right-on towards the
platform. Most of these people that I bash into are as much in hurry as I am,
so I tell myself probably they don’t mind my half-baked attempt at being
courteous.
Today what was different is that I have
just three minutes left till the train leaves the station. I don’t take the
over-bridge running over the other railway tracks to get my platform. I decide
to just walk over the tracks to reach it as early as possible. A feat I rarely,
if ever, do.
You see, in Mumbai local train’s tracks are
infamous death traps. Often slippery and have puddle all round, you get your
foot stuck in it at the wrong time and you’re a goner. You’re last sight on
this sweet planet Earth will be of the big engine compartment of some train
coming full speed towards you.
They will have to sweep off your guts and
bones from even 50 meters off of the spot where you collided with the train.
When I was in school and living in the
Western lines region, I had seen people carry away a guy on a stretcher once.
That guy had apparently jumped off of a running train too early and landed
right on to the signal posts that they build at the ends of each platform. His
face was half torn open and he was clearly knocked-out cold by the impact.
Maybe just had a concussion, but the way his body was laying limp on that
stretcher anyone could have already thought he was dead. They had tried to
cover his face up with a piece of cloth but with the amount of blood pouring
out of it, the bloody rag of cloth only made it look all the more horrifying.
An image like that stays on in a kid’s
memory.
That was the image that came into my mind
that day as I was hurrying over the tracks. I could see my train has already
arrived in platform number 1. I had just passed number 4 and was getting over
the 3rd when I heard the siren blast. It was so loud and sudden
that at that precise moment, I thought it was already on top of me.
I turned around to my right, real slow. I
couldn’t speed up my body while doing that, it was like in the movies, important
scenes always happened in “slo-mo”. I guess this is what those directors were
aiming at. I was there gaping at the big engine just twenty-or so
feet away from me. I could see the engine-driver inside his cabin yelling at
the top of his voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but by the
movements of his lips I could guess he was asking me toget off the tracks and
showering me with some very tasteful, innovative abuses. I never knew
crap-for-brains can be used in such colourful combinations.
But I couldn’t move. I tried again, I just
couldn’t.
I looked down at my feet. They were still
where they always have been, at the far end of my legs. Larger than normal
people’s, on account of my height which also was not of normal people’s
measure.
“Idiot, is this the time to be thinking
about the size of your beep-darn feet? Move it, before you get crushed to
pulp!!”
I look up again to the engine; it was only
ten feet away. Now even the driver had stopped with his abuses and was staring
at me with both eyes and mouth opened. He got out of the trance faster than me
and was reaching at the panel in front of him and pushing levers and buttons
right and left.
And here I was still stuck like the deer in
front of headlights, ready to be another road-kill just like most of them deer
inevitably become.
I suddenly felt myself falling backwards. I
land heavily on my backside. Ouch, that’s going hurt bad when I get up. I
looked up from where I was the train’s wheels had now started to pass by from
the spot where my legs were at just a few seconds back. I looked higher towards
the engine, the driver had popped his head out of his side window, again back
to yelling abuses at me and also gesturing with his left hand too, the old
familiar respectful finger was up.
The train’s engine was out of sight soon
and I looked around to the small knot of people who had already gathered around
me by now. There were a couple of older men of my father’s age who invariably
had started with their “kids of this generation have got no common sense at
all” speech. Mister, you were right behind me crossing the tracks on foot, was
your common sense on vacation in Goa today?
Bloody hypocrites.
What my eyes were searching for, was the
guy who had the right sense to pull me off the tracks, than just wait see me
turn into tomato ketchup all over the railway tracks.
I recognised him soon enough, he was the
guy who I always see commuting in same train as me. He gets off two stops ahead
of me.
He mouths, “You alright, boss?”
I mouth, “Yes. Thanks to you!”
He hurries ahead towards platform number 1
without turning back again. I will have to ask his name sometime in future, or
buy him a cup of coffee or something. After all you don’t get a guardian angel
to rescue you from instant death every day, do you?
(I had missed my train that daythough; wish
there was some guardian angel I could keep on a retainer for that as well.)
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