Page 160 - FATE & DESTINY

FATE & DESTINY

“He would.” She dialed the number and talked for like ten minutes. “Now we must book our train
tickets.” She rang her cousin-sister, Phuntsho at Phuentsholing.
In the evening, Phuntsho said she had booked our tickets. The next day, we began our journey from
Thimphu to Phuentsholing. The same evening, Phuntsho Choden and her husband took us to the Shivaji
Travel Agent at Jaigaon. We paid him six thousand rupees.
“What about a taxi?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” replied Shivaji. “I have arranged a taxi. Report here at 7:30 am, IST.”
“Which means 7:00 am, BST?”
“Yes.”
We arrived at the Alipur Railway Station at 11:30 am, one hour before the train schedule.
One hour later, a woman made an ear-splitting announcement over the speaker. “Attention, passengers!
Guwahati–Trivandrum Express (12516), headed to Kerala is delayed by one hour. Inconvenience caused is
regretted.” She repeated it.
“Delayed by one hour?” I said. “Oops.”
“It will come,” said Choki. “Always be alert with the people around here.”
Amidst the bustling railway station, I remained watchful. Anything could happen with many suspicious
strangers hanging around. But it was a strange place, full of odd surprises. The sight of the mendicants
shuffling along the platform riveted me. Half-naked, their bodies studded with sores. A quivering old man
lay in the corner in silent pain. And skinny mothers begged, their babies clung to their bosoms. A few
beggar boys foraged the trash bins.
A starving dog whimpered from the opposite platform. The scrawny mother dog regurgitated the
partly-digested food for her six scrawny puppies.
“Poor puppies,” I said, clucking. “Gave me twenty rupees, Ama.”
“Why?”
“Look at those puppies. I must feed them.”
“People are watching us. Be cautious.”
I bought four packets of Parle-G biscuits and tossed them over to the puppies. They gobbled, wagging
their tiny tails. They ran after me.
“That should be enough,” I said. “Go away now, you poor puppies.”
A skeletal beggar raised his steel plate right before my nose. “Paisa, baba, bohut bhog legey hai.”
“Choki?”
She gawked at me and said, “Nahi hai, jao.”
“Please, Ama.”
She placed a ten-rupee note on his plate and said, “Ab jao.”
People seemed so much used to the situation. They showed no sympathy for the discarded people and
animals. Beggars were no longer recognized as humans. And animals were neglected like hungry spirits in
the movies. Nobody pitied them, except for a weak-at-heart dude like me. I paced back and forth or
looked in the direction the train was coming. The trains hooted. And the coolies squeezed into the
compartments with stuff on their turbaned heads. Tired and flustered, I sat beside Choki and stared across
the railway tracks. “Oops! When would the train come?”
Young hawkers moved from person to person, carrying groundnuts in a bamboo basket. “Badam le lo!
Badam!”
And the tea boy carried a kettle and tiny plastic cups, shouting, “Chai… chai…”
The fruit-seller carried a bamboo basket on his head, laden with fruits. “Apple! Kela!”
I wasn’t interested in all those bustling activities on the platform. So, I stared across the railway track,
gripped by trepidation of my son’s surgery. “Is Christian Medical College Hospital reputed?” I felt sick to
my stomach. “What if it was like AMRI hospital?”
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