The Last Train

The Last Train
Ritam Saha
22nd February 2018

The last train stood on Platform 3 with it's lights on and thick smoke rising in a single black column from the funnel on top of its engine. A young boy in shorts stood in the smoggy night, his eyes hooked onto the last crowd of office-goers boarding the train to go home. At any minute now, they would all depart on this last train and the station would be quiet for the night. From his position in the corner of the platform, he had a fairly good view of the entire train. It's doors were open. Typical. Doors were never closed on these local passenger trains.

He watched as people crammed into the compartments, pushing and shoving their way through. Like every other day, this last train too, was chock full. The digital clock on the platform read 11.27 PM. The train was due in 3 minutes. His attention was suddenly diverted by the sight of the portly stationmaster sauntering onto the platform from his room in the station building. He quickly hid behind a pile of wooden crates. If he was spotted, he would be in trouble. The boy held his breath as the stationmaster walked past the crates, humming an old Bollywood tune. He watched the man stroll to the other side of the platform and disappear behind the train.

When the young boy stepped out onto the platform again, the rail was due in only a minute. He began to scan the length of the train, his eyes shifting from compartment to compartment, door to door. People were leaning out and hawkers in the compartments were screaming wares for all sorts of commodities, from cigarettes to cheap toys. His eyes suddenly locked on the door of the ladies' compartment. A middle aged woman stood by it, holding on to the stanchion. She resembled a typical working - class lady, returning home after a tiring day. Slung over her shoulder was a light brown ladies' handbag. He knew almost immediately - this was his catch tonight.

The digital clock now read 11.30 PM. A shrill whistle from the guard's cabin announced that the train was now cleared to leave the junction. Beyond the sight of the young boy, the stationmaster waved the green flag. The train blew it's loud siren, which was followed by a jerk as its engine jolted the long stationary compartments into sudden motion.

The boy now left his position and inched closer to the edge of the platform. The train had begun moving. He stood as close to it as possible and stared, as the large windows and doors of each individual compartment rattled past him. The train was now increasing speed - the engine had left the platform. He glanced back to see where the ladies compartment was. He knew his routine. This was his living - the root of his income.

As a child, he'd always loved to travel. He loved to see how cars would roll along greasy roads with ease, how trains slid along their rail lines. He would look up at the sky and see aeroplanes zooming across. He used to be scared of aeroplanes and was terrorized by the thought that they might fall out of the sky. One day he had placed his views before his mother.

"How do they stay up there, ma?" he had asked her. "And why do they make that noise?"

His mother, who never had the priviledge of a quality education, answered him with great confidence. 

"The more noise they make, the higher they fly! The noise keeps them up."

"But ma, they look so small! How do people fit in them?"

"People don't! Planes are cramped. They are more cramped than local trains. That is exactly why I have never flown on a plane. You cannot trust these things, you know!"

The little boy nodded in agreement.

He had grown up in a simple family - his father was a clerk and earned just enough to provide for them. However, there was another source of income from his mother who would leave the house at eleven everyday and go to the city where she worked as a nurse. She would return late from work, so, for the better part of the day, the house was in the care of him and his sister, elder to him by a couple of years. They would walk to the village school together each morning, return home and have lunch, after which he would join his friends to play. In the evening, they would study under the strict supervision of their father, who was constantly worried at the thought that his children would end up being underpaid clerks like himself.

The ladies' compartment. A wave of adrenaline pumped up his frail body. His eyes locked on the target. As the bogie crossed him, he took one giant leap and snatched the brown handbag off the lady's shoulder.

"Run!" screamed a thousand voices in his head.

There was a sharp cry of suprise, as the lady felt the bag wrenched off her body. It took her a couple of moments to realise that it was gone. 

Almost immediately, loud cries of "Chor! Chor!" "Thief! Thief!" resounded in the compartment, but no one dared to jump out of the train; the compartment had left the platform.

The boy ran with incredible speed, his bare feet quickly taking him away from the platform, the stationmaster and trouble. He was fast. Nobody could catch him.

He was the fastest among his friends in the village also. They would race along the field, bare feet splashing mud and sludge. At school, they used to have a sports day. Here too, no one could match his capabilities. He had won the first prize consecutively for two years and the sarpanch had given him a medal.

His sprinting skills came useful one other time : when he ran away from his home and village at the age of twelve. He only had twenty rupees in his pocket then. He used all of the money to buy a ticket to Kolkata. He had no idea what he would do when he got there, but he was told that poor people like him could get rich in the city.

His train brought him to this large railway junction. Upon arrival, he was stunned by it's sheer size, the number of platforms and the frequency of trains leaving it. He walked around, admiring the shops, the platforms, the different amenities - it was much better than the small station in the village.

He tried to get himself some work at a local shop, but nobody would keep him. They told him he was too young! He couldn't understand why. In the village, one of his friends did work at a tea stall! The owners wouldn't even reason with him! When refused to be given work at all the shops in the station, he decided to earn some money by begging. He soon realised that the city was not a very kind place and he couldn't earn more than a few rupees each day.

He stopped. His legs had taken him to a less - visited corner of the station. This was where all the coaches were kept after the railways discarded them from service. This was, the railway yard.

He walked between two sets of rail tracks, his feet crunching gravel. The brown bag was comfortably slung over his shoulder. He stopped in front of a discarded brown, rusty railway carriage. Using the guardrails, he climbed into the musty compartment.

Many months ago, when he entered this very railway compartment for the first time, he had met his "friend". That was only a week since he'd arrived here. He remembered their first meeting clearly.

Hungry and frightened, he had climbed into the carriage to find shelter for the long wintry night. When he entered, it was dark. As he turned to close the door, a pair of strong hands pinned him down. One of the hands covered his mouth and muffled his cry, while the other held his arms down to the floor of the carriage. A voice began demanding questions about his identity and his intentions. Powerless and tired, he blurted out the truth. The two strong hands released him and subsequently moved down his clothes, patting the pockets gently to look for any weapon that he must be carrying. He had nothing. 

The other person then switched on a dim light that illuminated the compartment with a faint glow. For the first time, he saw the other person - another boy, much stronger and more well built and probably a little older than him. Introductions began and after talking to him for a while, he found a good friend.

His friend introduced him to this "business". It was an art, he was told, to be able to take something from someone and not get caught. But he was not convinced. When he was seven, he had stolen a few mangoes from someone's orchard. The owner had spotted him and reported it to his father. He had been beaten mercilessly at home that day. His father had warned him -

"If I ever see you lay your dirty hands on anything that isint yours, I will cut you into pieces". 

The young boy shuddered at the idea.

When he told his friend, he laughed and explained to him. "No crime could ever be called so unless you are caught. There are so many big people who steal and make large amounts of money. People in the government steal, people open businesses to steal from other people. We're just children! We will steal to eat and live and not for greed." The young boy agreed.

For the first few months, he formed a partnership with his friend. They would rob passengers together. Nobody had ever caught them except for one bitter occasion, when the stationmaster had spotted them and in a bid to catch the thieves, had picked up a cauldron of burning oil from a nearby stall and splattered it at them as they were running. The oil had burned his calves and left deep marks.

There was another day when they had been especially unlucky. Two policemen and the stationmaster had given chase after the passenger they'd robbed had raised the alarm.

In a frantic bid to escape the beating they would be administered to if caught, the two sneaked into the carshed. It was a magnificient place - all the trains were kept here. They began looking for a place to hide. His friend found a small room with nets on the window and quickly decided to stay inside until the danger had passed. He, on the other hand, decided to sit inside an empty carriage and watch for the policemen. They scrambled into their hiding places and waited.

Two minutes passed. He was still in the carriage and his friend had hidden himself in the small room. Subsequently, two police constables entered the carshed and stood there looking for movements. The young boy held his breath. After waiting for a while, the policemen looked at each other, shook their heads and hurried away in another direction. He heaved a sigh of relief. They would finally be safe. As he turned his head to tell his friend, there was a sudden shriek from the small room - loud pitched and full of pain!

He rushed out and wrenched open the door and to his shock, his friend was lying on the floor. Silent. He tried frantically to revive him, but his friend did not budge. He could hear footsteps. The scream had attracted attention and the railway guard on duty was rushing towards them. He quickly hid inside a carriage.

The guard on duty arrived and found his friend in the room. The man looked frightened. He saw him take out a mobile phone and dial a few numbers. Within a few minutes, the stationmaster and a few officials, a contingent of policemen, railway guards and paramedics arrived. They took his friend away on a stretcher. That was the last he'd heard of his friend, however, even in death, his friend taught him an important lesson - it was always a bad idea to seek refuge in the Electricity Room.

The young boy switched on the light in the carriage. The same faint glow lit up the compartment. Now, he could look at the bag properly. It was an ordinary lady's handbag with a zip lock.

Unzipping the bag, he looked inside at its contents. There was a notebook, a bunch of keys, an identity card, a purse... a purse!! He grabbed the purse and opened it. Money! His eyes gleamed with happiness as he counted his earnings. He used a finger to fold the counted notes and his lips moved in rhythm. Two thousand, four hundred and fifty rupees in notes and coins! He was elated! It would now be a number of days before he robbed the trains again.

The young boy rushed to the closest food stall with a fifty rupee note crumpled in his palm. He bought samosas. He loved these samosas. They were absolutely wonderful, especially when served with the sauce. He took large mouthfuls of the snack, felt the food fill his hungry stomach. His mouth watered.

Having eaten enough to keep him full for the night, the boy strolled back to his carriage. The station was now quiet. The stationmaster had returned to his cabin and would not come out until it was time for the first train, at 3.30 AM. His feet crunched gravel as he walked between the same rail lines as before, leading right to his shelter in the railway yard. It was a full moon night.

Train carriages looked so mysterious in the moonlight, he thought.

Upon arriving at his railway carriage, he realised that the door had been left open and the light was still on. He had forgotten to be cautious in his excitement. He was lucky that the illuminated carriage had not been seen by the night guard.

The young boy approached the door. As he placed a foot on the stair, something white caught his eye. It was the identity card from the purse he'd robbed. In a haste to get himself some dinner, he had totally forgotten about it. He concluded that he must have bumped into the open purse while leaving the carriage causing the card to fall out onto the gravel. He picked it up, climbed in and held it up against the light.

What he saw next was enough to freeze him even inside this fairly warm carriage. He sat down on the floor in shock as it dawned on him that he had robbed his own mother, who was probably returning home after a tiring day at work.